Services
Plenty FarmsAt Plenty Farms, I asked questions about the potatoes to show that I respected John’s work. Asking people for something shows that you value who they are and the lives they live. It is important to show that you respect the people you are serving because they are human beings. For all of the physical possessions they may lack, they may have spiritual qualities that are worth ten times more than any tangible item. I love listening to people, so next time I go on a service project I will ask to hear their story (if they are willing to share). I would love to hear their story because as Baldwin phrased it “in the act of telling a story, we create a world we invite others into”. It would be an honor to be invited into the world of someone who has more strength and courage than I may ever possess in my lifetime.
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Feeding AmericaOn the trip I learned the heart is so powerful as evidence from James Anthony from Feeding America. His words were able to inspire our group to unbox, clean, rebox, unbox, check, and rebox 10,000 pounds of food in four hours. If someone told me this was possible last week, I would have laughed in their face. But after this weekend, I was able to see that the power of love is able to break the boundary of what we believe to be impossible. If James heard the Pipher quote, “The process of trying to make things better is the healthiest way I have of responding to the world around me” (Pipher 121) I believe he would whole heartedly agree because he emphasized how lucky each one of us are. I woke up today with all working limbs, a functioning brain, and great health. I am so blessed for everything that I have, and I realize all my problems are so small in the grand scheme of things. There are people who are wondering when their next meal will be, mothers deciding whether to turn off the water supply or heat because they cannot afford both, children who are sitting at home because it is not safe to attend school- and here I am. An eighteen-year-old healthy girl saying my “life is over” because I am going to get a B in math. Active citizens are the ones who can look past their own problems to try and help the people around them who have bigger more serious problems.
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Center for Food ActionI volunteered at my town's CFA. When I walked back to the food pantry, I saw something I did not expect- a bunch of senior citizens and disabled students. It was surprising to me because at Feeding America I was surrounded by an energetic worker and young college students. I saw how many boxes there were compared to Feeding America. There were giant boxes filled with random food. Our job was to take the food out of the giant box, check the expiration date and put it in another box labeled with that kind of food. So "carrots" "peas" "cereal" etc. each had their own box. There was no cleaning stage which I found surprising. Another way it was different was food less than a year expired was donated to the local soup kitchen as oppose to just being thrown away.
The senior citizens were very welcoming to me and curious to hear about my experience at Virginia Tech. They told me their out dated theories of accounting and I couldn't help but chuckle when my new friend John told me how he remembered debits "door" and credits "window". As we worked throughout the day, more people kept stopping by donating more food. Midway through the day, a private school dropped off 22 duffel bags were of food weighing in at around 500 pounds. I was becoming frustrated at how slow everyone worked and how fast the food came in. I wanted to become angry and try to implement a new system, however; my feelings changed. Joe, one of the oldest senior citizens, came in pretending to wear binoculars. Joey, one of the disabled students, started laughing uncontrollably saying, "I'm not slacking off!" I felt a lot of emotions at that moment. I knew why the CFA worked so well, why people wanted to donate, and why even though they were not efficient- they were still effective. They change people's lives. They change the lives of the people who work. And that's when I realized that all people have the ability to give back in some way. Senior citizens could spend their time golfing or vacationing in Florida, and instead they were lifting heavy boxes so a certain "little lady" (myself) wouldn't have to pick one up. These senior citizens were making disabled students feel welcomed, a feeling absent in my high school. The disabled students had a place to feel a purpose. When they logged their hours on the sheet, they felt proud of themselves. They didn't want to take a lunch break because they knew they were needed to do work. Everyone could have been somewhere else, but they weren't. They were all in the same pantry trying to change the lives of people they don't know, without knowing the lives they were mostly changing were their own. |