Food Bank

Today we had an awesome opportunity to go and help out at a local food bank. It is a small food bank- they don't need hardly any volunteers because they only hand out food twice a month, but we sneaked our way in..

This food bank started out as a couple of kids at an elementary school who noticed some kids went hungry. They started a food bank at their school. Eventually, they outgrew the school. One of the fathers at the school owns an office complex and he gave the school one of the units to use. Now it has expanded to help not just kids at the school, but people in the entire county who are struggling.

The best part about this food bank is that they let kids come help!!!! The women who run the food bank encourage you to bring kids- they want kids to learn service, and their own small children are there all the time.

They don't really have enough work for large groups to go, and it is actually really hard to get a spot to serve because space is limited. People sign up months in advance as that's the only way you can get a spot.

Nevertheless, we were able to go this morning and it was awesome. Ben stayed home with Camille, so it was just Audra, Claire, and me. I was a little worried about Claire, and there were a couple of times that she almost freaked out, but she held herself together and did great on the whole. It is really good that she has Audra- she really relies on her to help calm her.

 They were in charge of moving these wagons, which held the bagged produce that each family received, from one end of the room to the other. It was an assembly line where the families came through and picked up their produce, then received a previously filled bag of canned items to take home. The girls took this task very seriously, and they did great with it.

 Because it is so hard to come to this food bank, I don't know how often we will be able to go. But, we will try to come when we can. It was a fantastic opportunity and both girls said they enjoyed themselves. We want to try to do one service project a month. I don't know if it will happen, but it's worth aiming for. I have a couple of other ideas in the works, so we will see how it all pans out.