Today was a great day. My company makes me SO proud sometimes. Well, most days it does but today was one of those extra special proud days.
My department did not go into the office as usual today. Nope, today we ALL volunteered at the North Texas Food Bank. It was done as not only community service, but a team building exercise as well. It worked on so many levels.
For anyone that does not know, the North Texas Food Bank feeds so many people in 13 counties in north Texas. They actually provide access to around 130,000 nutritious meals a day. They do this through 14 different programs ranging from Food 4 Paws, which supplies food for pets of these needy families, to the Second Chance Program which allows select prisoners to volunteer their time to work in the food bank, giving them warehouse training to use to find work upon release. There is also the Kids Cafe and Food 4 Kids programs which offer food to kids that receive free or reduced-price breakfast and lunches at school, but do not have food at home for dinner or weekends.
Everyone from my department showed up today ready and excited for this opportunity! It really was a lot of fun too. Great Scott, it was a LOT of work though! Basically what we did was take the tons of food that local grocery stores donated that were close to expiration date, and we sorted it. We were there for 2 1./2 hours and wow, we sorted SO much food! I don't remember how many meals, but our work will feed a lot of people tomorrow morning. I went home tonight feeling extremely proud of us.
I will be going there again - or to any food bank to help. If anyone wants to jump in and go with me, let me know.
This day made me realize how much we take our own pantry for granted. Even tonight, we got Little Cesar's Pizza because (it is so damn yummy, duh) we were too lazy to make anything we have. We have food. It is just not anything we wanted tonight.
Today, this YOT Day (post) 54, I am thankful for being able to always have food in my house.
It is a bittersweet feeling to know that my cabinets have food in them and I have the option of whatever I want to eat, even if that means ordering out. Yet, there are people that cannot feed their kids at night at all. While I know it is real, the idea of it is unfathomable to me. I honestly cannot imagine myself in that situation. How horrible it must feel when your child tells you they are hungry and you have absolutely nothing to give them. It is heartbreaking. Whatever the situation, it is not fair to the kids. I know there are some people out there that don't care and are wanting to live off the government. I know they are there, I have met them. They will let their kids go hungry just to "stick it" to the government and make them feed them. I also know there are so many families out there trying so hard and just can't get food on the table every night. They work but it just is not enough to pay for everything they need. They have so few options.
The NTFB is helping so many of those families and I am grateful for that. Although they feed 130,000 meals a day, they estimate they need about triple that to feed everyone that needs it. How incredible is that? That there are that many people, just in north Texas alone, that cannot feel themselves on a regular basis.
This also reminds me to be nice to everyone you meet because you do not know what their story is. You don't know what they are silently fighting at home. Not feeding your kids is not something you would be open to tell anyone about.
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