Community Service

Today Sheridan and I went to a church in Libertyville that has a food pantry every third Saturday of the month. This month there were 210 families, down from previous months.

Sheridan and I talk about communtiy service and we believe it is important, not just to help other but it also helps us and humbles us.
Sheridan is learning and understanding that if I lose my job we could easily be one paycheck away from needing to go to the food pantry too.

This pantry is unique in that they do not have a storage location. The Northern IL food bank shows up with a truck of food the church orders for the food pantry distribution that day.

They offer canned goods, fruits and vegetables, soups, tuna, as well as being a unique pantry because they order Breads, Fresh Fruits, Cakes, and sweets, Frozen Meats. Many pantries dont have the ability to store refrigerated or frozen food so this becomes a luxury to many of these people in need.

Today we arrived at 9am, and the truck was being unloaded. Sheridan and I were assigned to sorting the cans of fruits and vegetables and then we moved on to sorting the pastas and a bunch of misc. stuff. Sheridan also counted items and marked quantities on boxes.

Once we know what we have they count the totals and advise what we can give each family.
At 10am we all pray together and then start lining the people up, they are assigned #'s when they arrive.

I was giving out the soups/beans/ tuna/ canned meals - Sheridan was giving out the fruits and applesauce. they had enough applesauce for every family to get at least one can plus other fruits. the soup had cream of chicken and rice in abundance to give out that extra as well plus 3 cans of soup/tuna/beans or canned meals.

we left at about 1240 b/c i had to get to the doctor. Time went so fast. I was surprised it was almost one when we left. there were about 30 more families in line... others took our spot.

It is great to help and see people, face to face. we show respect b/c we could all be in need at anytime too.

Donate time to a community service that makes you feel good, food pantries or otherwise but help others. It is so important.