The zeal I had for my new found passion was quite evident to all those around me. I really tried to reel some of my friends and family into my new quest but alas… nobody would join me. I think the way things panned out was for the best anyway. I look at this as an opportunity to grow, get out of my comfort zone and embrace new experiences in life. I can’t honestly think of the last time I said to myself “this is the first time I have done something”. With all that being said, I am happy to report that I am one month closer to my goal. I actually completed my first day as a volunteer at the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB), which I later discovered was quite close The Catholic University of America.
On April 2, 2011, I rolled out of bed and reviewed the information about my first assignment. I also reviewed exactly what the CAFB was all about. The CAFB is the largest, nonprofit hunger and nutrition education resource in the Washington Metropolitan area. Their mission is to help feed DC area residents who are facing or at risk of hunger. The CAFB also works to educate, empower and enlighten the community about the issues of hunger and nutrition. Once I had grasp of it's mission I set out to my destination.One a side note, I was initially the most nervous about getting lost and not making it to the CAFB on time. My closest friends and family know that I don’t have the best since of direction when it comes to driving around the city, lol….. To my surprise I actually arrived early, so I sat in my car and drank my coffee until my volunteer shift began. I walked in feeling kind of lost and afraid but was quickly pointed in the right direction by a weekend volunteer leader at the warehouse. They asked if I came with a group or individually and then when I mentioned DC Cares, they led me to my group leader and team.
While waiting for further instruction from the warehouse volunteers, I found out more about the CAFB Brown Bag Program. The CAFB uses their Brown Bag Program to educate the community about the importance of healthy diets and provides senior citizens in low-income housing with monthly bags of food and educational information on nutrition in 34 different locations in the DC area. They also provide temporary food assistance to other low income residents around DC. The warehouse volunteer leader informed us as a group that over the next three hours, we would be packing and sorting food that would be distributed to various low income residents in the area. During my time in the warehouse I broke down the palettes that contained food and organized and packed it the food into bags. Each bag contained food for three meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and even a snack. The whole process was done as a group in one big assembly line which I thought was cool. I got a chance to chat up some very cool people and gain a new prospective on the plight of the hungry in DC.
*On a final note about an hour into my session the whole warehouse was informed that the CAFB would be shooting a video of the volunteer process at their DC warehouse. The camera crew took pictures of us in action on the food assembly line as well as filmed the process as a whole. First of all, I thought this was hilarious because out of all the days I choose to help out, a camera crew shows up! Second of all I looked all kinds of crazy and beat down because I figured nobody would care or see me anyway, ha!
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