Today’s workday started with the morning prayer group and daily devotional reading by Hana (our trip coordinator) at the Salvation Army/Kroc Center.
From there we split into two groups: Mary and Jo Anne stayed at the Center and helped with food prep and general cleaning of the facility. Around lunchtime, they helped with food distribution and met some of the individuals there to receive their meals.
Meanwhile, Tony, Tania, Lloyd, Courtney, and Jamie went to the Open Hand Atlanta meal packing center. We helped the very efficient group of people there pack about 2,000 meals. The day’s projection was for 6,200 meals to be prepped, packaged, and frozen for distribution later in the week. About 5,000 will be completed on Monday and the remaining will be packed on Tuesday.
Open Hand processes an average of 5,000 meals per week. Caitlyn, the kitchen operations manager, who has a Master’s in Nutrition Science, was extremely helpful in getting those of us new to the process acclimated.
She and the team are super focused on cleanliness and hygiene while preparing and packaging the foods. We were required to wear aprons, gloves, and hair nets while in the kitchen area… Lloyd even had to wear a beard net!
Caitlyn made a comment to us that our efforts (as with all the volunteers) make a huge positive impact on their mission.
After being there for the better part of the morning, we all re-grouped again at the Center and were tasked with going out to the community for help in cleaning the area.
This included picking up trash in the streets and asking neighbors if they needed any yard maintenance or cleaning. The residents were very appreciative of our efforts to help them.
To our dismay, our afternoon outreach was cut short by about an hour by a terrific rain storm.
We culminated our day with a group dinner of burgers and lots of yummy fried foods. Today was a great day… looking forward to our adventures tomorrow!
Stay Tuned!
