AmeriCorps Week 2009: Day 1
As some of my online friends know, I am currently a member of AmeriCorps, the national service program that offers opportunites to serve a variety of critical needs in communities nationwide. Today was the first day of the third annual AmeriCorps Week, a week when all AmeriCorps members and alumni are encouraged to create exposure for the program by giving presentations to community groups and putting together special community service projects. Since the official AmeriCorps Week website also recommends increasing our exposure by blogging about our AmeriCorps service experience, I will write daily blog entries this week about what I'm up to.
My particular AmeriCorps program, Literacy AmeriCorps Palm Beach County, is a team of 25 people who serve the mission of the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County for a year at a time. We do such things as tutor children in reading, coach high school students to help them graduate, teach English for Speakers of Other Languages and adult literacy classes, and even contribute to the development of a new nonprofit program to support youth caregivers. We each do things like these at a different site during the week, but on the weekends, we get together to participate in larger community service projects hosted by other community groups. Today, we kicked off our AmeriCorps Week by helping out with the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.
The Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive was organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers. Earlier in the week, mail carriers throughout the area (and, apparently, the nation) distributed flyers and specially-printed plastic grocery bags to all the mailboxes on their routes. The flyers explained that if customers left bags of nonperishable food items by their mailboxes on Saturday, May 9, the food would be picked up by the mail carriers and delivered to local food banks. In actuality, it wasn't quite that simple. The mail carriers didn't take the food directly to the food banks after picking it up. They brought it back to the post office, where a church-based community organization had set up a sorting and packing station. We AmeriCorps members joined the members of that organization in volunteering to sort and pack the food.
We had to check in at the church first to sign waivers and receive name tags and commemorative badges, then drive the short distance to the post office. The sorting and packing station was behind the post office, in the shade of some mango trees in the back corner of the parking lot (a good thing, too, since it was a warm afternoon). There were two rows of folding tables, a bunch of lawn chairs, some coolers containing water for the volunteers, two big trucks to transport the food to the food banks, and lots and lots of cardboard boxes and plastic mail sorting trays. We waited at the station for the mail trucks to return from their delivery routes. When they did, volunteers took the bags of donated food out of the backs of the trucks and put them on the folding tables, where other volunteers stood ready to take the food out of the bags and use the mail sorting trays to sort it. At our station, we sorted them first by date (putting all the expired food in a separate area to be thrown away), then by container type (metal cans, glass, plastic, or boxes). Once the food was sorted, still other volunteers packed it in cardboard boxes, which were stacked up as we went along and placed on one of the trucks at the end of the day. (I think the other truck was just used to haul away the expired food.)
Even though it was hot outside, sorting the food was fast-paced and a lot of fun. Early in the afternoon, there were periods when there was nothing to do except wait around for more trucks to arrive, but the steady stream of incoming trucks kept us constantly busy later in the day. We sorted and packed with lots of energy and friendly chatter, and the community organization hosting the event told us that they were very grateful for our help. We must have packed at least 50 boxes full of food, probably more. When we went home, I was tired and soaked with sweat, but very happy.
Photos of today's volunteer efforts can be found in a publicly-viewable Facebook photo album here.
(Note: This is a backdated entry. I wrote it over the course of May 9th and 10th, and didn't get a chance to post it until the 11th.)
My particular AmeriCorps program, Literacy AmeriCorps Palm Beach County, is a team of 25 people who serve the mission of the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County for a year at a time. We do such things as tutor children in reading, coach high school students to help them graduate, teach English for Speakers of Other Languages and adult literacy classes, and even contribute to the development of a new nonprofit program to support youth caregivers. We each do things like these at a different site during the week, but on the weekends, we get together to participate in larger community service projects hosted by other community groups. Today, we kicked off our AmeriCorps Week by helping out with the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.
The Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive was organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers. Earlier in the week, mail carriers throughout the area (and, apparently, the nation) distributed flyers and specially-printed plastic grocery bags to all the mailboxes on their routes. The flyers explained that if customers left bags of nonperishable food items by their mailboxes on Saturday, May 9, the food would be picked up by the mail carriers and delivered to local food banks. In actuality, it wasn't quite that simple. The mail carriers didn't take the food directly to the food banks after picking it up. They brought it back to the post office, where a church-based community organization had set up a sorting and packing station. We AmeriCorps members joined the members of that organization in volunteering to sort and pack the food.
We had to check in at the church first to sign waivers and receive name tags and commemorative badges, then drive the short distance to the post office. The sorting and packing station was behind the post office, in the shade of some mango trees in the back corner of the parking lot (a good thing, too, since it was a warm afternoon). There were two rows of folding tables, a bunch of lawn chairs, some coolers containing water for the volunteers, two big trucks to transport the food to the food banks, and lots and lots of cardboard boxes and plastic mail sorting trays. We waited at the station for the mail trucks to return from their delivery routes. When they did, volunteers took the bags of donated food out of the backs of the trucks and put them on the folding tables, where other volunteers stood ready to take the food out of the bags and use the mail sorting trays to sort it. At our station, we sorted them first by date (putting all the expired food in a separate area to be thrown away), then by container type (metal cans, glass, plastic, or boxes). Once the food was sorted, still other volunteers packed it in cardboard boxes, which were stacked up as we went along and placed on one of the trucks at the end of the day. (I think the other truck was just used to haul away the expired food.)
Even though it was hot outside, sorting the food was fast-paced and a lot of fun. Early in the afternoon, there were periods when there was nothing to do except wait around for more trucks to arrive, but the steady stream of incoming trucks kept us constantly busy later in the day. We sorted and packed with lots of energy and friendly chatter, and the community organization hosting the event told us that they were very grateful for our help. We must have packed at least 50 boxes full of food, probably more. When we went home, I was tired and soaked with sweat, but very happy.
Photos of today's volunteer efforts can be found in a publicly-viewable Facebook photo album here.
(Note: This is a backdated entry. I wrote it over the course of May 9th and 10th, and didn't get a chance to post it until the 11th.)