10 thousand lbs of cabbage

Today I had the opportunity to work side by side with my younger daughter.  She is in the honors program at our local community college.  As part of her scholarship, she is required to do community service.  Today, she had signed up to volunteer at the Greater Chicago Food Depository.  For those of you unfamiliar with this agency, they warehouse tons of food that is donated by various agencies and distribute it to soup kitchens or food pantries.  We worked in produce today.  There were about 30 or so of us in produce.  Together we repackaged 10 thousand pounds of cabbage.  They were in those huge boxes like you see in the grocery store……the 4 foot high ones.  We sorted them (removed the bad ones) and put them into smaller boxes of 25 pounds.  Part of the group was repackaging pasta,,,,,,a 2,000 parcel into individual 2 lb bags.   The other group was putting labels on cans…. GCFD was able to purchase them at a reduced rate, because they did not have labels.  The group labeled and boxed over 2,000 cans of beans.  These beans can now be put into inventory and distributed to the people who need them.  This experience was wonderful.  All of the employees were so thankful that we all gave up our Saturday morning to volunteer.  All of the other volunteers we spoke with were nice.  AND it was a great feeling to know that men, women, and children will have food in their stomachs.  Food in their stomach because a few of us spent a few hours of our time on a Saturday morning.