Today was my first day at service! So I have to admit I was kind of nervous about it at first. Looking back though, I have no idea why because it turned out to be great. Lauren and I got paired up to work (do service) at the food pantry in the old convent lol. So walked over there bc it's so insanely close, and we met the nurse who runs the pantry. Her name is Dona and she is really sweet and attentive. She kind of gave us a run through of what we were supposed to do which is relatively easy because we just have to fill bags with food for the families. It was only my first day, but it was already very eye opening. It honestly just mad me sad because I don't know if I realized how many people actually need the food pantry and how that is their only source of food in some cases. So that makes me sad and I think it's so unfair that not everyone has easy access to one of the most essential and basic needs that we have. The thing that makes me the saddest is thinking about the families that have to come and get their food here. I had a really hard time not overstuffing the bags even though we need to distribute evenly. Actually, I filled every bag to the brim because I feel bad being the one who decides what families can and can't have. I wish we could have the families make lists and write down the things that they need and like the most to make sure we get those in there, as well as how many because if they have larger families they need more. But I told my dad about it and he told me that he will tell the people at the company he works for about it and have them donate bread because big companies always just throw away perfectly fresh and good bread and it is just such a waste. Which reminds me of this documentary I saw on people who go "dumper diving" wc essentially is people who are trying to help the earth and consume less by salvaging food that was thrown away even though there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. Some of the food is still in its original packaging so seeing all the amazing food that they salvaged was mind blowing. And it was clean. It def. has a gross connotation, but it helps create less waste and get good use out of food that is perfectly good and necessary. The other thing that was crazy to me at the pantry was how the food was brand name food. I just figured that a food pantry would have generic brands but they had some of my favorites, including Manischevitz, which is my ALL-TIME favorite and I also found hilarious because it is run by a church (my school). And they had all kinds of Trader Joes and Whole Foods things so that was pretty neat. It made me happy to see that we were giving out food that they might not have been able to get otherwise. That was cool. Also Andy S from Nesiya called me today to let me know that the Nesiya apps are going out within the next week or 2 so to get ready to sign up. I want to do Nesiya so bad I can't even describe it. I will give more deets on that later but now I have to go do my english paper and some other homework.
Peace!