Food Assistance Warehouse

On the first day of winter break, I volunteered with TAGS at Food Assistance Warehouse. The organization collects donations of food and distributes it to elderly people in the community for whom it may be difficult stay fully supplied and nourished. I organized the pallets of food and helped back the bags for the January distribution.

Overall, although the work was a little dull, I thought it was significant to be helping the elderly. That is a demographic that is often overlooked when it comes to outreach and a fairly large percentage of elderly live below the poverty line. Sometimes I think that we as a society can become so focused on a single problem that we forget the other ones that may exist.

The warehouse

Christmas Tree Sales, 2013

Like in 2012, the youth group at my church sold Christmas trees to raise money. This year, the money is not just going to our outreach efforts at Glory Ridge; it's also funding a trip to Spain in June, helping defray the cost so more people will be able to go. Also like last year, the sales consisted of manning a table outside of the church on Sunday mornings and then loading the trees onto cars two weekends in December.

We didn't sell very many trees the first few weeks despite our best efforts, causing the youth leaders to reconsider our strategy somewhat. I suggested moving the table to a more prominent spot, which we did. Things seemed to pick up after that, perhaps because we moved the table, or perhaps due to the efforts of Meredith Scott, one of the youth leaders who single-handedly sold something like fifteen trees one morning.The distribution days were the same ordered chaos, although by now we had become quite experts at lashing trees to cars.

We raised a total of $4,000, considerably more than the previous year. That was especially good news given that the money was going to more than one thing. Another successful fundraiser to make all of the youth group's outreach programs possible!

Unwrapping the trees for trimming