Saturday, August 15, 2009

Volunteering: Homelessness and Hunger

I just came back from one of the best volunteering projects ever. The project (through NYCares) was to deliver food to homeless people with an organization called Deliver with Coalition. The organization basically collects food and runs vans to different neighborhoods in the city and distributes food at designated stops along a route. Yeah, I thought about this safety issues in all of this but there was definitely nothing to worry about. It was basically like a soup kitchen/food pantry on wheels. We hand them plastic bags and then put sandwiches, juice, milk, and fruit in them as they come up in a line. People are usually extremely grateful everything. The other volunteers were really cool as well. The team leader is awesome. I had met her in a couple of earlier projects, which was the main reason I signed up for this one. At the end we had some sandwiches left over and the driver packed three in a bag and took it up front with him in case he sees someone on the highway. And indeed, when we were going on the highway, there was someone standing with a sign "homeless, hungry." There was a bit of traffic at that spot so the driver just rolled down the window and handed the guy the sandwiches.

Like I mention in an earlier post, it's so much more rewarding to actually interact with the people you're serving. This morning I was doing a project where we were sorting out clothes for a nonprofit that helps women prepare for interviews and work related stuff. The work was pretty slow since we were just sorting out the things that people were bringing in that day. It was good but it's just not the same as actually working with the clients themselves.

I'm getting up at 5am tomorrow morning to volunteer for the NYC Half Marathon. No, not as rewarding as feeding the homelesss but it should be a fun project.

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