Volunteering At A Food Pantry

The way River City Food Bank works is that they open to the public from 11:30 am to 3:00 pm. They provide many services for single and multiple families. Anyone who lives in Sacramento and reports that they or their dependents are living at or below the federal poverty line are eligible to receive these benefits. This site relies on the help of volunteers from around the Sacramento area. The day I went to River City Food Bank, there were twenty volunteers on this site ready to help and assist. My role was

Specific Purpose: To inform the audience of the workings of the Houston Food Bank and the concepts discussed during the course which were demonstrated through our volunteer experience.

Around the globe there are many who are at a state of no access to food. Not only does this effect the homeless, but also those with a family and children. Because of their low income or environmental state and even poverty, not everyone has a fair chance of a proper nutrition. This is where the role of food banks comes into place as it limits these problems to these individuals. Through charitable events at school, I have participated in giving canned food items or food items that will not rot within a couple of years or months. Participating in these events not only gave me a ticket to partake in the well-being for others, but it also gave me a more understanding as to how many people are really impacted with hunger as well as other forms of their needs.

There are 50 million people who live in poverty in the U.S, today. There are more than 30 million children growing up in bad conditions. Due to lack of money some people are unable to afford food and shelter which result in homelessness. On a night in January 2014, 578,424 people were experiencing homelessness. These people were sleeping outside or in an emergency shelter because they couldn’t afford to pay for a place to stay and had no family that would let them stay over. Included in the 578,424 homeless people were war veterans, people with mental health issues, people whose families have thrown them out, and more. During the winter, many homeless people freeze to death because they don’t have the appropriate clothing for the low temperature. Today there are about 795 million people out of the 7.3 billion people in the world, suffering from chronic malnourishment. Over a thousand people go through their day without eating including men, women, and children. These people are too poor to afford food for themselves or their families; although there are food stamps and other services to provide to help these families, some don’t want to accept this help because they believe it is their job to provide for their

During the time I spent volunteering at John C. Lincoln’s Food Bank, I was able to provide food, individual hygiene items, and infant supplies to families struggling to obtain these critical items for their families. When I first arrived at the food bank, I spent time constructing care packages with soap, toothbrushes, personal wipes, and other essential items for health care. Later in the day, I had the unique opportunity to assist with the simulated grocery store within the food bank. The structure of the store allowed individuals receiving food to feel as though they were actively participating instead of passively accepting food and feeling helpless. Overall, I was able to instill a sense of self-efficiency in individuals who were struggling to provide for their families while personally interacting and sharing my time in a meaningful way.

This particular article is written by Patricia A. Duffy who states that low income families use the food pantry for emergence assistance for food, aside from the traditional government programs; this article suggests that food pantries are heavily used for emergency food (Duffy). The article focuses more on lower income families instead of the homeless. It compares food stamp programs along with the food pantry to understand how they both tie in to one another. There are various statistics and interviews of those who participate in such programs across the nation.

Two years ago, I was sitting in a dimly lit packing room, wedged between a stalled out pale yellow refrigerator and a stack of boxes, packed to the brim with all sorts of canned fruits and vegetables. People worked quickly here, moving boxes from one corner of the room to another, creating a rhythm of sorts. Thump. Swoosh. Thump. Swoosh. The boxes left in droves as lines of people congregated around the open warehouse door with open hands ready to accept what was offered while statements of gratitude leapt from their tongues. The amount of people waiting outside far outnumbered the volunteers, but the volunteers worked hard, they knew they had to today. It was 104 degrees outside and some of these people standing in line, with children in tow, had been waiting for hours. It was distribution day at the South Texas Food Bank and I was there to help.

According to the survey conducted by the U.S conference of Mayors, 67% of adults requesting emergency food aids are people with jobs. Recently, American food banks are experiencing a “torrent of need which they cannot meet”. In Maine, Ms Ehrenreich needed immediate food aid or cash assistance as she was new to the place and most of

Volunteering at a local soup kitchen has become an important activity that humbles me, having witnessed the difficulties this population faces. The Christian Medical Association Homeless Meals Program at Wayne State University School of Medicine will allow me to continue this type of community outreach.

When I was volunteering in the food bank, there were very few new faces, and the most of them were our “regular customers.” They would show up seven days a week, come by car and fetch the whole family’s ration, or all the family members would come to take their ration. It hard to imagine that an entire family has to live such miserable life in such a long period of time. While I am grateful to those benefactors and Samaritans for assuring the food banks had adequate food storage and donations, I realized that this is not a permanent solution for poverty, as evidenced by the same group of people repeatedly showing up every week. As a charity, food banks are not meant to eradicate poverty; instead, they should be considered as a complimentary social service aid the most, which most people neglect to remember.

In 2015, my sophomore year in high school, I was presented with an opportunity. Two of my friends and I had the ability to design our own community service project. I particularly was drawn to the issue of poverty in my hometown. I had always had an idea of what I thought homelessness was, however, as I talked to the manager of a Council Bluffs homeless shelter, The MICAH House, I realized I was completely wrong. Homelessness is not always like the stereotypical picture that the media portrays, but a mere lack of resources, resulting in complete inability for one to reground themselves. From that point on, I felt permanently attached to the matter. The largest issue that was revealed to us, among the shelter, was the lack of transportation.

My volunteer service has made a massive difference in numerous communities concretely the Denver Mission community. My inspiration commenced while working on a class homelessness project at Colorado Student Leaders institute. The constant research apprised me on the entire spectrum of implications of our society's most vulnerable and stirred me to become apart of something more immensely colossal than just myself involving volunteering. The Denver Mission provides emergency care to the homeless and it is an ingression point for their New Life program participants. Depending on the time of my volunteer accommodation, my volunteer position accomplishes serving warm cooked repasts for either breakfast, lunch, or dinner. The impact of my accommodation

At the Cafe, the homeless are invited to work with the volunteers in order to pay for their food. This creates a deeper intimacy between volunteers and homeless. In addition to serving beside the volunteers, some people come to the Cafe daily and just eat their food and sit and talk to people. One man Connor and I talked to was a regular at the Cafe and was an important part of the community there. Jean was a very upbeat, intelligent, and wise man. He was reading You Are the Placebo, Making Your Mind Matter, by Dr. Dawson Church. We talked about the Placebo Effect and how it has worked wonders for many people. He then went to tell us about how it can affect our lives. He told us that for many people on the streets, it is working against them. “They never see the good in anything and their negativity is the main reason why they can’t get off the streets”, he said. Looking back on my experiences with the homeless, I realized that he was right. Pessimism is the root cause of why many of the people I have met are still out on the streets. Jean taught us the key to living a happy life: optimism. “If you can convince yourself that your life is good, then it will be

Reflecting upon things I am most passionate about or involved in I instantly thought of working with children and the elderly, then I thought of those who I showed no interest in working with. Initially, volunteering to help the poor or third world countries came to mind. First, while I am a caring person, I did not think to help those in poverty before in the community because I myself grew up in a low income family surviving off food stamps or welfare, so I thought if I am capable of coming out on top, then others are as well. However, I did not think of the support I got along the way. I did not think of how not everyone gets accepted for food stamps, or that if a family does that the amount is not reasonable since I have seen families only receive sixteen dollars who need far more than that. Second, when it comes to third world countries the saying goes, “Out of sight, out of mind.” I did not want to live life thinking this way anymore, so it was time to make a change. To put it differently, I reflected upon Karen Armstrong’s negative version of the Golden Rule mentioned in the sixth step, Action, “Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you” (Armstrong ). In like manner, I would not want to be cast to the side in my time of need, neither should I do that to others.

Prior to this class I had a close minded view about people who were homeless. I always viewed homeless people as being either druggies or alcoholics that were just too lazy to find a job. This belief even went as far as having the same belief on anyone who had to rely on these food drives. Serving at God’s I was able to learn a few things and had my overall view change about people who were homeless. The first thing I learned was how God’s Kitchen serves more than people who are homeless, and how they also serve families that are unable to afford food