June 9, 2008 (first day of service)

June 9, 2008
Owen got us all settled in to the sleeping area:

We started the day with an early wake-up call of 6:30 a.m.!!!!! This meant that at best, most of us had less than 2 ½ hours of sleep : (


Owen and a couple of others woke up even earlier and went to a local grocer store and purchased groceries. That meant that we could have a breakfast (doughnuts, or pop tarts and orange juice) AND pack our lunches. Showers and grooming took place before and during breakfast. Then we split into our groups and confirmed our assignments.
Groups 1 and 2 traveled together to the Food Bank. This meant a 20 minute walk to the subway (it might have been shorter if we hadn’t gotten lost for a little bit). We took the uptown train to 125th street and there we took the “transfer” train to the “Hunt’s Point Station”. From there it was a short (but hot) walk to the actual food bank.

At the Food Bank:



We had a short orientation by “Hannibal”, one of the workers and our personal guide. The orientation included a thought provoking video about hunger and the mission of the Food Bank to make a difference. One quote that several of us immediately felt connected to was “You don’t have to be homeless, to be hungry.” We signed in as volunteers and were directed to the work area. Essentially, this is a portion of their warehouse with a 30 foot table off to one side. Next to the table were several large bins with food products. We split up into two groups; one consisted of 4 -6 of us on the side of the bins and the rest were on the other side. The “bin” side people picked up food from the bins and separated it into categories like: cereal, protein, canned fruit, condiments, etc. Each item was checked for general appearance and its expiration date. The people on the non-bin side rechecked the dates and put the items into boxes, taped and sealed them for shipping. The first few minutes were a little hard for me to find the best place to be to be helpful and not in the way. After a little maneuvering, it all seemed to work!!!! Everyone jumped in there was a real grove to effort. After about an hour and a half, we actually reached the bottom of the bins! There was no more to do. So, Hannibal led us to a break room for debriefing. He asked us to guess how many pounds of food we’d processed today and several numbers were through out….. all of them were too low.

The total was 3691 pounds of food. Based upon the average “weight” of a meal, that means that we separated and packed 2839 meals this morning! The kids really did a great job!!!

After our debriefing, we ate lunch and took a moment to reflect. The walk back to the bus stop was absolutely flawless……… except for the fact that the bus driver who first stopped for us told that were at the WRONG stop and that we needed to walk even further in this really hot sun : (
Well, we pulled ourselves together and started walking. After about 5 minutes of trooping along, we still did not see another stop. Finally, we all agreed to go back to the original stop and simply take our chances with whatever bus that came along. (to be sure, the heat and fatigue played a part of that decision) The next bus came by a few minutes later and we made it back to the Church without any problems.

We have a few minutes to sit (type) and cool off before our afternoon sessions. Those start at around 3:30. Group 1 will need to hit the road at around 2:30.

Here is a picture of group 2 in the subway:

Here is a classic "yellow cab":

Here are two intrepid subway travelers (James Clay and Taylor)