Community Service (part II)

Over the past week I have completed 6 hours of community service. First I went to Bernie's Book Bank  on Thursday. When I walked in, I was hesitant because I didn't know exactly what this would entail. However, the woman working there explained the basics of how Bernie's Book Bank works. They receive donated books from all over and basically distribute them by grade and reading level. After you organize them, stickers are put on and any less fortunate school can call them and Bernie's Bank will send them. It was only me and another girl about my age. We were given a huge bin that we had to separate into reading levels. In the beginning, it was difficult but once you got into a rhythm, it was easy. Seeing all these books brought back so many memories of learning to read. My favorites were the Junie B. Jones books and to this day, I still have all those books. This community service made me feel really grateful for what I have because I was fortunate enough to have supplies of books while some kids are behind on reading. I was really glad to be able to help less fortunate kids receive the help they need to strive in school.
I also went to Feed My Starving Children, which sends hand-packed meals to malnourished kids. They make 3 different kinds of meals: MannaPack Rice, MannaPack Potato-D and MannaPack Potato-W. The day I went we were packing Potato- D, which is the world's only food to manage diarrhea, a killer worldwide. I was shocked at how many groups were there. There was church groups, girl scouts, university clubs and also just people who wanted to help like me. A person in charge explained how the assembly lines worked and put us to work. I asked if I could join a group because I came alone. My job was to scoop the Sweet Potato sweetener and the soy ingredient while another girl scooped the Potato-D ingredient. All the ingredients were combined in a bag and weighed. After they were weighed they were sealed and put in a box. Each box contained 50 bags of MannaPack Potato- D. They cranked up the radio and everyone is singing. We all had a lot of fun and when you filled a box, your team had to do a cheer so that they could bring you a new one. This experience brought me closer with complete strangers and it made me feel a sense of belonging even when I didn't know anyone there. When we were all finished all the volunteers packed a total of 62 boxes which is 37,000 servings! Just that one night helped so many starving children out there and I am so happy I went. I plan to bring my gymnastics team there over the summer so we can all do it together. It was a great opportunity and I'm glad I got to help out any way I could. This is at FMSC. There are the 3 ingredients that was put in the funnel and in a bag to be weighed.