Food Bank-Boys Scouts Food Drive

Saturday morning I volunteered at the Food Bank in Sioux City where there were about 20 people in total helping out.  We were set up in a replica of an assembly line.  One person was bringing in crates of food, then half the people were assorting cans and placing them in front of each little box labeled accordingly to what they were, then the other half (which is where I was) placed the cans in the boxes until they reached 20 lbs. and then hauled them over to people who taped the boxes and put them on separate crates behind the labeled boxes.  Linda, who was the lady in charge, said that they have always organized their food this way because it is efficient and effective.  There was some time in between loads of food, so when we had this time gap we began working on the “Backpack” programs food.  We would just open cardboard boxes, take the fruit containers out of the wrapping, and then place them back into the cardboard boxes to be taped again.  I am assuming they did this just to make it easier on the schools that the fruit cups were being delivered to.

Linda introduced herself as the head of the organization, but once things got started I did not really notice her.  There were several leaders from the Food Bank however, each one in charge of their section.  Edgar was in charge of labeling the boxes and making sure each box was well supplied so the operation would never be backed up.  He was very nice and a hard working.  While we were doing our jobs you could constantly see Edgar running around making sure everything was stocked up and running smoothly; more of a lead by example kind of guy.  There was also another lady named Amy who seemed to be more in charge of the Backpack program.  She directed us with the steps we were supposed to take and which crates to redo and where to put the finished crates at.  She was very kind and had a gentle personality.  She would thoroughly explain what was needed to be done and she had a smile on her face the whole time and also spoke in a soft voice.  She was very approachable.

Before we started our assembly line of assorting the food, Linda had mentioned that if any of the labeled boxes were running low that we were supposed to let Edgar know so he can label them and get them out as soon as possible.  I took on this role.  There were several different labels that were running low and nobody was really paying attention to it.  So when I noticed this, I made sure to keep a close eye on the supply of the boxes and made sure to tell Edgar which boxes were needed to be labeled.  This helped keep things running smoothly.

I really liked volunteering at the Food Bank because there were so many different people volunteering that day.  There were mothers, fathers, students, different ages, and different races of people.  It was a fun experience to work side by side with people that you would normally never have the chance to do so.  To see so many different backgrounds and personalities coming together to complete one task was a very cool thing to be apart of.