Feeling Good

As I indicated in a previous post, one of the things I felt strongly about during the beginning of the year was giving back by volunteering. I recently spent a half day volunteering at America’s Second Harvest of Tampa Bay and I have to say it was an eye opening experience.

For those unfamiliar with this organization, America’s Second Harvest (ASH) is a food bank that acts as a warehouse for food coming from retailers that would otherwise be disposed of. Grocery stores and other retailers of food products often end up with items that have damaged packaging which they are not normally able to sell. These dented cans and overstocked items get donated to ASH where they are sorted and stocked in a grocery store like manner for their clients. Clients of ASH include churches and soup kitchens that must meet certain requirements in order to participate. Once they become “members” of ASH, these charitable organizations are free to “shop” among whatever items are available at no charge.

During my time with ASH, I was sorting goods that came in according to the type of product it was: Canned vegetables in one box; pasta and rice in another. Items arrive in banana boxes and are sorted using the same boxes as these are the strongest boxes for their size. A pallet of goods from a specific retailer may contain any combination of items which must be sorted in order to ease the next step in the process which is stocking ASH’s shelves.

For me, the single most surprising thing I learned was regarding the staggering amount of food that would normally be thrown away. We’re not talking about a few cans. It really adds up quickly.

So I spent a half day sorting items and getting a bit dirty in the process. When I got home, I thought about how thankful I was to have a place to wash up. When I sat down to my lunch, I thought about how thankful I was to have that turkey sandwich. And as I reflected on the events of that morning, I realized that my experience of volunteering had probably done as much for me as it had for those whom I will probably never know.