CAFB x TWO... Feeding Hope. Nourishing Change. Creating Sustainability.

I am happy to report that I am very close to my volunteer anniversary! It has been almost a year since I started on a quest that was initially only supposed to last 6 months. It all began in April of 2011, when I had a dream in my heart and plan to make it happen. There have been allot of bumps along the way but I kept it moving (even through the cold months and snow). 

Along the way I have made new friends, found perspective and fulfilled a portion of God's purpose for my life. As a Christian, I feel that it is my duty to be a true disciple of Christ by living life like he did, which includes serving others. Jesus spent his whole life in service to others, healing the sick, feeding the hungry and teaching the world to walk in love.  In the book of Matthew Jesus teaches his disciples the greatest commandment of the law, which is to (a) Love the the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all of your soul and (b) Love your neighbor as your self. You never know where life will take you or what hardships may come your way. So do for others what you would want others to do for you if you where in need.

Another passage in Matthew comes to mind when I think about service.  In Matthew 20: 20-28, Jesus teaches his disciples about service to others.  When the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus asking him to let her Sons sit in places of honor next to him in heaven, the disciples got mad. Jesus explains that the while the rulers of this world flaunt their authority over you, among you it will be different.  Whoever wants to be a leader among you must become your servant and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave, For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So I choose to spend my life in service to others in every way that I possibly can through physical and financial support.

I have been to the Capital Area Food Bank several times before and each time completing a new task with the same goal in mind, to bag food for the brown bag program that the CAFB has. I have sorted bags to be filled, filled bags in the grocery line and was what I call a "food handler" that directly handled the food to be placed in bags. Well this time around I had a little company my niece Tyti, who I think really enjoyed her time at the CAFB. We stayed for over two hours, almost three.  As a group we finished filling the bags for the brown bag program ahead of schedule, so we were allowed to sort food from the palates of donated food (mad manual labor but fun!) into piles for future volunteer sessions. The sorting sounds boring but was actually cool, it was like shopping at the ultimate grocery store (in my mind I was placing supermarket sweep, lol). See the pic's and video below : )

*On a final note I made a new service stop for the first time in months, and had a good conversation with a fellow Greater DC Cares volunteer that encouraged me to become a volunteer leader, which I will talk about later.