Oh so yeah I did another volunteer event! We sorted and packed donated food at a food bank in the Bronx. We worked through a total of 10,532 pounds. Each pallet would be brought from the cold room to our sorting area. After unboxing, we would organize the foodstuffs into dairy, veg, pork, beef, chicken, turkey [very seasonal], and fish. They would be put split into boxes, labelled, and carted for distribution to various food kitchen throughout the city.
It took place during the work day, so we all arrived at One Bryant park at around 8am, and piled into a shuttle to drive us to FoodBank for NYC at Hunts Point.
Around 20 of us were there, about 6 from OBP and another 12 from White Plains. They were also celebrating/promoting/doing a tv interview to highlight the great work Bank of America has done with the FoodBank. Just that center alone received 3 million dollars in donation and over 1000 community service hours. That’s actually a fact I can be proud of.
We split into 4 teams to sort and package food, plus a couple of various tasks like making boxes, breaking down boxes, moving crates. For the next 4 hours from 9am to 1pm, we were engaged in rapidly stuffing all kind of foodstuffs into boxes. It mostly came from grocery stores, getting rid of old goods that were expired or close to expired.
We learned that for non-perishables or frozen foods, as long as we saw no clear signs of freezer burn or contamination [say opened or leaking packages] anything that was within 12 months from the printed expiration, was good to go.
Additionally, way more meat products than anything else were donated though that might have just been what we had been given to sort.
The work was honestly pretty difficult, involving lots of moving heavy frozen goods from pallet to table to pallet. It was also pretty unpleasant, from sorting very expired food to dealing with drippings and other grossness.
And it was not the most rewarding experience, both from the lack of interaction with another population and that the culture of the White Plains people gave me some abrasions while working together. That might have been a me thing! But especially in the beginning I had a lot of questions and wanted a lot of clarification before sorting and packaging goods, but my colleagues seemed more interested in being fast and getting more done. I think the differences in approach gave a few friction points when I asked clarification questions or slowed down the general pace of work.
Anyway, we finished our shifts and went back into the office. I had a few productive hours before leaving to go home and be glad Peter cooked me a bombass pork-and-potato noodle soup with blanched bok choy.
It’s a blessing. Both to have a manager that supports and engages in community service, and to be able and health enough to help. It’s holiday season and I take this time to be just immensely grateful for the abundance of blessings I have in my life. Friends, family, opportunity, security, health, balance, achievement, ambition, peace, love.
I am trying my best to give that back into the world, little steps, but steps nonetheless.