What’s Going On?

Tonight, I had the opportunity to help out with some volunteers at the San Francisco Food Bank.  Located in Potrero Hill, the food bank is housed inside of a very nice contemporary warehouse where canned, dry food, fresh produce, and frozen foods are stored. According to the food bank about 133,000 people are fed through various programs throughout the city. Mostly funded through contributions from corporations, the food bank also takes public and private donations as well.

Having been a volunteer before at the food bank, I was eager to see what type of work the full-time employees had for us to do this time around. The last time I was here I remember having to sift through boxes and boxes of peaches. Peaches were donated to the food bank and the volunteer’s job was to screen the peaches and make sure that the bruised, moldy, and often deformed fruit get tossed away, while the good peaches got repacked into “good to eat” boxes.

This time around we were given instruction on packaging Chinese pasta. The task at hand was to open up bulk boxes of pasta and individually package 1lb sealed bags and label them. Each workstation had a limit of seven people. What worked most efficiently was to have two people package the pasta, two people to weigh the pasta and audit if more or less pasta needed to be added or taken away from the bags, two people to help seal the bags, and one person to label and repack the bags into a box of 30 packages.

Given two hours as a whole, we were able to get a pallet packed and loaded and ready to be shipped. According to the food bank employees we had packed 2,250lbs of pasta, which was also equivalent to 11 tons+, but according to my math from high school one ton = 2,000 lbs. However, being a geek that I am, I just now am looking up on google what the measure equivalent is: 2,000lbs = one short ton; 2,240lbs = one long ton. No matter how I look at it, I still don’t know how the employee came up with 11 tons, it didn’t make sense. Nonetheless, we accomplished a task and it was a lot of fun. I felt like a robot throughout the whole experience, but I had a sense of pride that I was able to help as much as I could in helping provide thousands of people with food that can be consumed in hard economic times.

If you are interested in helping the food bank, there are many opportunities that you can be a part of. Volunteer days are seven days a week during the daytime and evenings are Tuesday through Thursday only. Specific times to volunteer is located on their web-page. Bring a group if you can, they can accommodate groups of up to 80 people. If you cannot bring a group, you can come individually as well. Being able to volunteer at the San Francisco Food Bank is just a wonderful experience and I encourage you all to take part in giving back to the community and help and serve those that need us.