Helping at the Food Bank

Jake and I went to help at the Second Harvest Food Bank yesterday with some members of our church. We sorted hygiene products for them. They had boxes of donated items that we had to sort; all the toothbrushes, shampoo, soap, shaving cream, razors and toothpaste were together and need to be in separate boxes. Anything else we found in the boxes went into another box to go somewhere else.  We also had to mark through the bar code and pull off any papers that were taped on.

From what I understand Wal-Mart donates lots of items, the volunteers sort them and then those who need them can come to the food bank and “shop”.  It wasn’t hard work but there were some decisions to be made.  Some packages were completely open. We had to look and see if the items were used or just open. At first a lot of things were deemed no good but as our time went on we started thinking in a different way. If you had no soap would your really care if the package was ripped? If you had no toothpaste would you care that the box was crushed?

I know by the end we were doing a much better job.  I am glad we went and hope we can go again. Now that I know what to do and how things work it will go better.

Jake and I picked up the missionaries and another fellow from our church. One of the missionaries had be to the Food Bank and helped a lot so he really knew what to do and we were able to ask him questions when the main person in charge was not available.  It took us a long time to get to the food bank and a long time to get home mostly because of picking everyone up.  Jake and I have the missionaries over for dinner once a month and Jake helps them out as often as he can. I didn’t know the other gentleman very well but he was very nice and was able to get us quickly to his house from the food bank (it is REALLY easy to get lost downtown!)

Thanks for reading!

Terri