Tuesday Continued...

Today I worked in the food bank and the Hamilton Victory Gardens. My team left the church earlier than any of the other groups in order to get to the food bank to get ready for the morning's work. The food bank is a shopping center for the homeless and poor people and families in Hamilton. Shoppers come in with a colored card which designates how much food they are allowed to get depending on the number of people in their family. They receive a shopping cart and can go around the shopping center, looking for items they need for the month. After they are done shopping, they come to the checkout line, where I was working. We unload their cart onto a conveyer belt you would see in any Walmart or big shopping center. We ask to see their card and make sure they didn't take too many items, then we put their items into plastic bags, or felt if they brought their own. The Good Shepherd Center, the organization SERVE Hamilton works with, has paid workers as well as volunteers. During the week of SERVE, most volunteers don't have to come in because we are working there. Two volunteers came in, forgetting the SERVE teams were there. The one man had Down Syndrome, and did not talk, but knew sign language, and the other man was his friend. They came to bag the produce on my line and kept working even after figuring out they did not even need to be there. It was very fun to talk to them. The man with Down Syndrome was very sweet and had worked there for nine years with the father of his friend that was with him. The other man had only worked there for a short time, but his father had owned the building before Good Shepherd bought it, when it was a car dealership. We had the chance to talk to them about what group we are with and why we're there. We talked about where we were from and why we liked volunteering at the food bank. It was very special to talk to people with such different backgrounds from us.  Also, it was fun to see the same clothes being taken by clients that we had sorted the day before!

     In the afternoon my group worked at the Hamilton Victory Gardens. Our job there was to weed the raised garden beds, which is what the whole garden consists of. We pulled weeds out of most of the beds you could see from the road. The produce from the gardens go toward the Food Bank and other people in need. I got to talk to the volunteer who was there as well, learning about her background and how long she has been volunteering with SERVE.
     
Jennifer