Give a little time: Volunteer at your local food bank

Three nights ago I attended another volunteer food sort at the Second Harvest Food Bank. For their December meeting the Silicon Valley chapter of the wedding and event organization NACE (the National Association of Catering Executives) decided to ask people to donate some time volunteering to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

Remember the last time I did this we sorted tangerines? It was hard work but also fun and so aromatic.

Bins of oranges waiting to be bagged.

When you volunteer at a food sort there are two types of jobs. The first is sorting packaged food donations. The second is bagging fresh produce.

We were in charge of bagging these huge bins of fresh carrots. As soon as you walked into the room it smelled carrottey. Carrotie? Carrotea? LOL

There were a LOT of carrots.

We started here. We had to fill as many of these huge empty boxes as we could with bags filled with 3 lbs of carrots.

Ready. Set. GO!

I packaged one bag of carrots and immediately commented it was kind of hard to tie the bag in a knot wearing latex gloves. So then I was asked to take off my gloves and tie all the bags for everyone! LOL. I did have help which was great because there was no way I could have done it by myself.

As the boxes were emptied the sides were cut down to make it easier to reach the carrots. But me? I was busy spinning bags and tying knots at the speed of light. I literally tied hundreds and hundreds of knots.

There were 225 bags of carrots in each big box.

So how did we do? At the end of our two hour shift we'd bagged and boxed 900 bags of carrots! That's 2700 lbs! Awesome!

That's me doing my best snowman impersonation.

And once again it was a great feeling knowing we'd helped the food bank. We were told that volunteer food sorters save the food bank $5.7 milllion dollars each year since they don't have to pay employees to do the work!

Our team included (left to right) Robbie Schlosser from the Magnolia Jazz Band, Natti Pierce-Thomson from North American Theater Technology, Robert Kusters from Silicon DJ, our non-wedding professional friend Silvi, Claudia Akers from Claudia Akers Photography, Rich Amooi from Hey Mr. DJ, Lindsay Catterton from The Wild Geranium and Carl Mindling from I MC Events. Not pictured was photographer Jim Vetter who got caught in a massive rush hour traffic jam that turned his 90 minute commute to the food bank into a 3 hour drive, so he got there to help, just late after we'd taken our group photo.

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To locate a food bank where you live CLICK HERE to visit the Feeding America website.

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To support the Santa Clara and San Mateo, CA Second Harvest Food Banks use the links below:

Donate Funds:
If you want to donate to help support the Second Harvest Food Bank you can CLICK HERE to donate online (95¢ of every $1 donated goes directly toward programs that feed hungry people) or drop off food at one of the two warehouses in San Jose and San Carlos, CA.

Donate Food:
Click the links below for information about how to donate food at a Second Harvest warehouse or lobby during business hours. If you have questions or need assistance you can call 1-866-234-3663 or email donor.relations@shfb.org

Santa Clara County Distribution Center
750 Curtner Avenue, San Jose CA 95125
Phone: (408) 266-8866
Holiday Hours

San Mateo County Distribution Center
1051 Bing Street, San Carlos, CA 94070
Phone: (650) 610-0800
Holiday Hours

Aromatherapy and a Great Workout. . . At the Food Bank?

Last night I spent two hours soaking in the citrusy scent of fresh tangerines. Ah, aromatherapy.

I also received quite a workout bagging what felt like a bottomless bin of tangerines for two hours into three pound bags with a great team of volunteers created by my friend, wedding industry colleague and radio DJ Rich Amooi. That's Rich on the left with the tangerine on his head.

Two years ago Rich decided that the wedding industry should have a team of volunteers. He created a Facebook group and several times a year he signs up to work a food sort at the Second Harvest Food Bank. He sends us a notice on Facebook and if we can make it we let him know via Facebook's event page.

Previous to Rich's group I'd volunteered twice through another friend's group and once suffered a minor injury that left me smelling like freezer burned green peas. The smelling bad was my fault, not the food bank's LOL. The first three or four times I've done this we had to do food sorts separating donated groceries (cans, bottles, jars and packaged goods) into different categories. (CLICK HERE to view a previous post about what a grocery food sort is like.)

The last two times it's been dividing fruit. Which I have to say I prefer even though it involves a lot of bending as the bins empty. The last food sort we did we had to box peaches. They smelled even better than the tangerines!

Thanks to Rich our fearless leader. You make volunteering ROCK!

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If your community has a food bank I bet they could use volunteers too. You should see if there's an opportunity to sign up and go for it!

To put together a volunteer team, like Rich did, in San Jose you can visit the Volunteer Page of the food bank website by CLICKING HERE. It's two hours of your time, a great work out and a great way to support the less fortunate in your community.

If you don't have the time to volunteer there are many other ways to support Second Harvest. A wide variety of ways to give are available. CLICK HERE to learn how:

Cash Gifts
Credit Card Donations by Fax or Mail
Non-perishable Food Donations
Wholesale Donations of Food
Memorial and Honorary Gifts
Monthly Harvest Club
Gifts of Stock
Leave a Legacy through a Planned Gift

If you can make a food donation what the food bank is in most need of are:

• Meals in a can (stew, chili, soup)
• tuna/canned meat
• peanut butter
• canned foods with pop-top lids
• low sugar cereals
• 100% fruit juices in single serving boxes
• canned fruit (packed in its own juice)
• canned vegetables (low salt)

The Food Bank also needs nutritious, non-perishable, single-serving foods for use in programs for children.

• Pop-Top Tuna
• 100% Fruit Rolls
• Raisins
• Graham Crackers
• Unsweetened Applesauce
• Cheese and Crackers
• Fruit Cups
• Low-sugar Cereal Bowls
• Pretzels
• 100% Fruit Juice Boxes
• Granola Bars (without peanuts)

Rejecting India's Caste System

Narayanan Krishnan was a 22 year old, award winning chef on his way to Switzerland to begin working as a chef in a 5 star hotel when a trip home to Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India changed the course of his destiny.

When Narayanan saw a destitute, old, man eating his own human waste in the street because he had nothing else to eat, it changed his life forever. In that moment the recent college graduate found his true calling... "I want to save my people. That is the purpose of my life," his website says. He decided he would feed this man and others like him living in abject poverty: the forsaken, mentally ill, the homeless too weak to help themselves. With that he gave up his professional career as a chef in a 5 star hotel and began his own foundation, Akshaya Trust, to feed and help some of the poorest of Madurai's poor.

This image is from an amazing video about Narayanan on Facebook.

Not only does he cook for the Dalits (aka Untouchables) in Madurai, against tradition as an orthodox member of the Brahmin caste, he also feeds, cleans, cuts their hair, touches and befriends them to give them back pride they may have lost or very likely he may introduce them to respect they had never experienced until this very amazing man, rejected one of the most engrained forms of discrimination and segregation on our planet, and walked into their lives with open arms bearing both food and friendship.

There will always be people within most societies who are, for many reasons, not able to care for themselves or survive on their own. When families and governments are unable to intercede and assist them, it falls upon friends and strangers to make a decision to reach out, assist and save those who can be helped in some way. Without charity some will perish.

But the Akshaya Trust helps many who are not able to help themselves. Their website says that Narayanan feeds 400 people, 3 times per day, traveling 124 miles. Since creating his foundation in 2003 Narayanan has, to date, served more than 1.2 million meals while earning no profit for himself. He feeds those without food and in turn his mother feeds him vowing to take care of him as he takes care of others for as long as she is alive. I am so moved by Narayanan's passion and dedication. His future dream is to finish construction on a community center of sorts where he can not only feed the homeless but can offer them a roof over their heads.

For his efforts, Narayanan was recognized as one of "CNN's Heroes" which highlights ordinary people changing the world in extraordinary ways. You can read his story on CNN.com by CLICKING HERE.

If you're moved and want to help his cause you can donate (to help pay for meals or for the future Akshaya Home) via Paypal using the link on the left hand sidebar of the Akshaya Trust website.

If you prefer to support a charity that helps those who are capable and want to help themselves there are other options you can support like micro-finance organization Kiva.org.

"Volunteering Rocks" the Second Harvest Food Bank

Last week my friend and colleague Rich Amooi from Hey Mr. DJ organized a volunteer team to meet at the Second Harvest Food Bank to participate in a food sort.

This is where the food that has been donated is removed from large bins and sorted by type and size. There were two teams, sorters and the packers. I thought I'd try being a packer so I took over the spot for rice, beans and pasta. Each had to be packed into separate boxes. Because these aren't plentiful items I also helped out with the miscellaneous foods which is the busiest category.

Claudia Akers and Amy Frugoli were there. In fact most of the pictures of the food sort were taken by Amy because I was so focused on volunteering it completely slipped my mind to bring my camera :)

Robbie Shclosser and Lucie Silveira pause for a quick snapshot in front of the canned vegetables.

Our wedding team in this picture consisted of Claudia Akers scrunched down behind me boxing tuna, Lt Beaton with her hands full of cans, Eileen Chiu holding the #5 bag and Elley Ho beside her.

Rich Amooi, Claudia Akers, Amy Frugoli, me, Lt Beaton, Cara Laine and Jessie Garcia

If you can make a food donation what the food bank is in most need of are:

Meals in a can (stew, chili, soup), tuna/canned meat, peanut butter, canned foods with pop-top lids, low sugar cereals, 100% fruit juices in single serving boxes, canned fruit packed in its own juice, and low salt canned vegetables.

To put together a volunteer team like Rich did you can visit the Volunteer Page of the food bank website by CLICKING HERE. It's two hours of your time, a great work out and a great way to support the less fortunate in your community.

If you don't have the time to volunteer there are many other ways to support Second Harvest. A wide variety of ways to give are available CLICK HERE to learn how:

Cash Gifts
Credit Card Donations by Fax or Mail
Non-perishable Food Donations
Wholesale Donations of Food
Memorial and Honorary Gifts
Monthly Harvest Club
Gifts of Stock
Leave a Legacy through a Planned Gift