At the end of July, our group visited the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank to serve as volunteers on a food service project for local folks in need. The experience was a complete success! We had a total of 8 youth and 3 adult advisors serve for 2 hours at the food bank. We assembled a total of 420 bags consisting of the following: 2 bags of rice; 1 lb spaghetti; 2 jars spaghetti sauce; 2 boxes mac n cheese; 3 jars applesauce; 1 bag of beans; 3 cans of tomato soup; 1 can of chicken; 1 jar of peanut butter; 3 cans of peaches. The food bags are intended to supplement meals for a family of 4 for a weekend. It was humbling to think about that amount of food nurturing a family of 4 for a weekend; afterward, at lunch, we had good discussion about what weekend meals look like in our homes versus what we packaged up that day. All in the group were surprised to find out that 10% of the population visits the food bank regularly. We thought that number was quite staggering. It was an excellent experience, the first of many.
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| High five for teamwork! |
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| Hard at work |
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| breaking down the many boxes from the food we'd organized |
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| One full palette of bags, ready to go! |
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| Who knew trash compacting could be so fun?! |
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| Our awesome crew |
