Yesterday the girls and I worked at Loaves and Fishes. Its the food bank for our county. It was very interesting. They are in a new building and its very nice. I enjoyed working with friends and meeting new people.
A lot of thoughts go through your head when you work there. For instance a family may come in and get food and then take it out to a brand new car. Or a family may come in that hasn't been there in a while.
One lady said she was there for the second time, (they can come twice in a 30 day period, with a letter from one of the local churches). Her records indicated that she needed a new letter, we told her so through a translator and told her to come back after she got a new letter. She did come back later and brought another lady for food but she didn't bring a letter for herself. Finally through the translator we found out that they had told her that it had only been 8 days and she couldn't have another letter yet. We began looking and digging and found out that someone had not written down the date of her last visit and she was correct about the time line. We apologized and got the lady some food.
I was really glad we discovered what had happened, she said she didn't have food at home.
I also found out that I can donate extra soap I make. I was glad to hear it because I have a lot of seasonal scented soap I was wondering what to do with besides use. We can only use so much for ourselves.
We work again this coming Thursday and I will take some soap then.
3 comments:
When I was in college, a lot of students would go get food at the food bank. It was common and most of them were just saving their money for other things....There are plenty in need, but it's a problem with an institution being able to distinguish fairly by rules and not impressions.
That is an interesting account. Yes, being human, it's inevitable that we will have a "natural" reaction to the people with the new car. And then we never know what is really going on... like, did they just buy the car and lose their income? Or something like that? I'm glad things worked out for the other woman. God bless you for your generosity.
It's a good point that as a volunteer and worker, we are not to judge. Because as Yolanda said we never know what happened. I have seen people give new cars to relatives that are need.
It's easy to see the problems with bigger and bigger systems more and more removed from the people it serves. That was what I meant. And since the country seems to be moving in that direction, I probably am more resistant than otherwise.
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