Over Easter break, I choose to volunteer at the Second Harvest Food-Bank of Southern Wisconsin. Their facility is located in Madison, WI, only about 10 miles from my house. Second Harvest is a charity that supplies food to the food pantries of Southern Wisconsin. On their website, it states that their mission is "To end hunger in southwestern Wisconsin through community partnerships". Their website also states that "one in eight people in Southern Wisconsin faces hunger because of their financial situation". Over 100 million meals have been provided to hungry people since Second Harvest opened their doors in 1986.
On April 4th, I gave six hours of my time to prepare food for delivery to food pantries and other distribution centers in the area. During the first three hours, my duties included sorting edible food from products that had been reached their sell-by-date and were brought in from local grocery stores. I stood at a table and worked with two other people to put the acceptable food in to bags and sort them into allocated bins. There were about five other tables surrounded by people that were doing the same job as I was. While working I met several nice people. Many during my first session were from local church groups. My supervisor, Jamie, is a very nice man who has devoted himself to helping those in need and he runs most of the floor operations at Second Harvest's facility. He was very interesting to meet and he does his job very well. I learned a lot about the logistics and operations of food pantries from him. Though I did not see the people we were preparing the food for (I wasn't at a distribution center), I still feel that I help a bunch of people that day by sorting that food.
During the remaining three hours I volunteered, I packed cheese into bags and assisted another person vacuum-packing them. The other 20 or so volunteers cut pieces of cheese into two pound blocks and packed them into bags for distribution later that week. The person I was worked with and I worked as a team to get our allotment of cheese packaged. I cut large blocks of cheese into single pound blocks which we then put into small bags and the person with me then put them through a vacuum sealer and subsequently boxed them up for distribution later in the month. When we were finished, I was told that I had packaged around 600 pounds of cheese. In a way, I have helped over 100 less fortunate people get food that I normally take for granted. I also noticed that many of the volunteers during the second session were from Epic Systems, a company located not to far from my home. I guess their company has a service requirement sort of like College Writing 2 at Lewis.
At Second Harvest, I learned that I can help a lot of people get something as simple as food by just giving a few hours of service at the facility. I feel happy that I helped out those in need by volunteering at Second Harvest. I would do it again. I'm not sure when I'll be able to, though. I'm usually busy and the logistics of me getting there considering that I'm at Lewis for 3/4 of the year causes some problems. If I am able to go there again, I'll be sure to bring a family member there with me so that they can help those in need too.
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