Blog 3; Post D, Service Project.

In my earlier post on October 17 (Blog 2, Post D), I proposed to serve my service learning hours at the Common Pantry located on Chicago's northside. As of November 13, I have completed my service project, the details are as follows:

1.    The agency I served was the Common Pantry located at 3744 N. Damen Avenue.  The dates served were on Wednesdays' October 9th, 16th and the 23rd, and in November the 6th and the 13th.  I was honored to have served in various ways to learn the process of the food pantry as they served their clients. 

My first day at the pantry I helped out in the soup kitchen by serving food and dessert and helping in washing dishes.  I was really impressed at the quality of the food being served and that they served it on actual dinnerware instead of using paper plates and plastic utensils.  During my second day of service I mostly learned the ins and outs and operations of the pantry and helped in preparing bags of food for home-bound seniors at Lathrop Homes.  I also helped in restocking shelves with canned goods in preparation for the hours of food distribution.  

On my third day, I mostly did data entry into the pantry's database of records. As mundane as the task might seem to be for some, it is imperative information that is needed so that they may continue receiving donations from the Greater Chicago Food Depository and other surrounding stores like Costco, Whole Foods and Jewel's. During my fourth day of service I found myself in the backroom dubbed as the 'Children's Sunday School classroom', with myself and another student, Alejandro; as we double bagged a couple thousand plastic bags donated from Jewels stores.  I think we spent about two hours preparing these bags for clients to use during their shopping experience. 

On my fifth and final day I was headlining the produce and bread section of the pantry.  I was told the number of people in each household, and I was to use my judgment in giving an appropriate amount of produce and bread to accommodate the number of people in the household.  I found this position a little hard because I didn't know if I was giving enough product to last the family for a week, also I feared that I might be giving too much and not have enough to go around for the rest of the clients. At the end of the night it turned out that we did have enough to go around to have been able to give people double the bread amount.

2.    There were other students that worked at the Common Pantry alongside me.  They included Alejandro and Juan.  On my third day of service (10/23 from 4pm to 8pm) I worked alongside Juan, he helped in double bagging and consolidating canned goods into crates for storage while I sat and did data entry.  At one point we worked together in data entry to make the job more efficient in the time available.  During my fourth and fifth day of service (11/6 & 11/13 from 4pm to 8 pm), I worked alongside Alejandro in the pantry, restocking shelves and moving products from the backroom into the produce bins and shelves.  It was on 11/13 that we spent a few hours double bagging Jewel grocery bags, it seemed like the bags were never-ending.  

There were two other students who served at the pantry, Debra and Alex R., unfortunately I did not serve alongside them, but I did hear of their hard work through the staff at the Common Pantry.