By far one of the more productive shifts at the San Francisco Food Bank this past week. Together with a crew from XL Insurance (as part of their Global Day of Giving) and Salesforce.com, we packaged approximately about 42,000 pounds of food. Not bad for 3 hours of work.
I am getting to be pretty good at packing food at the San Francisco Food Bank. This week’s assignment was to pack bulk whole wheat tubettini into 1lb packages. I was able to accurately pack very close to 1lb of tubettini into individual bags without weighing it. The lady from Genesys, who had a group of volunteers that day, was quite amazed at how accurate I was. I guess practice does make perfect.
There was quite the turnout of volunteers at the San Francisco Food Bank this week. I was only a handful of volunteers who signed up individually, but there was a huge turnout of volunteers who signed up as a group from Mission High School and San Francisco State University. Every single one of the repacking stations was filled and we were able to re-package all the cake mixes well before our shift was up. Of course there is always more to do, so we ended up re-packaging rice as well. All together we repackaged bulk 50lb cake mixes and 100lb rice into 5000 1lb packages for redistribution to the various pantries in San Francisco.
Today I learned that San Bartolomé de la Torre is a town and municipality located in the province of Huelva, Spain. According to the 2008 census, the municipality had a population of 3446 inhabitants.
Today I learned that a group of magpies is called tidings of magpies. Much like a school of fish, a murder of crows, a dissimulation of birds, or a mischief of mice. The English language is so diverse. You can find more fun collective noun names at Fun With Words.
I also learned that magpies (喜鹊 Xǐquè) play a significant role in 七夕节 (Qīxì jié) which is celebrated on July 7.
I volunteered at the San Francisco Food Bank again over the weekend. The assigned project this time around was not very physically demanding. We had to repackage bulk bags of pasta into one pound bags. The process was somewhat slow and the group was only able to package about 1000 bags during the 3 hour shift.
Over the weekend, I volunteered to help out at the San Francisco Food Bank again. Since I’ve been there before, I was not offered the grand tour and got assigned to a project immediately. I was assigned to box up Mandarin oranges again, exactly like last week.
Mandarin oranges
Looks pretty daunting doesn’t it. In actuality, it really isn’t. When you have a group of dedicated people working on it like we did last weekend, it can get done quickly. Our group processed a lot more than this last week in 3 hours.
Soon after I started on the Mandarin oranges, I was told that there was an urgent project for the morning and I got reassigned to working on an assembly line to box up food for the elderly.
Crates of canned and box food
Assembly line at San Francisco Food Bank
In just under 3 hours, we packaged up over 49,000 pounds of food into 1400+ boxes. Not bad for a group of people who had never done it before.
Today I learned that there is a page on Wikipedia that will direct you to a random article. This is great for anyone who wants to serendipitously learn something new.
My first serendipitous education is on Near vs. Minnesota, a United States Supreme Court decision that recognized the freedom of the press..
Now that I find myself with some free time on my hands, I decided to volunteer my time to the San Francisco Food Bank. For those who are not familiar with it, the San Francisco Food Bank provides healthy food to alleviate hunger through:
They run a huge network of pantries (200+) and host numerous programs to help fight hunger.
I volunteered for the very first time this past weekend. For those of us who were volunteering for the very first time, we were treated to a quick tour of the facility and got a quick brief on the history and the charter of the organization and how it works. The day’s volunteers was a very diverse group. There was a group of senior citizens, a group of college students, a group from the Hyatt Regency, and some teenagers.
Our project was to package huge containers of Mandarin oranges into small distributable boxes. The oranges were purchased by the SFFB through the Farms To Family program. Luckily for us, it was a very nice San Francisco morning and we were stationed to do it outdoors. We started promptly at about 9:00AM and by noon we were told that we went through roughly 42000 pounds of oranges. It didn’t seem like it was a 3 hour job and certainly did not feel like I personally helped packed 1000 pound of oranges.
Overall, I had fun during the project and felt good about helping out in a worthwhile cause. It was so rewarding, that I would not hesitate to volunteer again. As a matter of fact, I already have. I strongly urge those who have time to volunteer their time or food or money towards such a good cause. It feels a lot better than clicking on the latest meme and the joy lasts a whole lot longer. Hope to bump into you there!