The office was closed and everyone was given a list of places we could volunteer at for the day. I chose to volunteer at one of the Atlanta area Senior Connections centers to help prepare boxes for meals on wheels.
The upside, I was able to sleep in and not have to be in the office at the crack of dawn, so I was totally down! Little did I know how much manual labor was going to be involved. Wow!!
We arrived about 10 AM and went through a brief run down on how the center operated and what we would be doing for the day--packing meals that would be distributed all over Atlanta and the metro area. We split up into groups, and we were each assigned a job. Some where putting together boxes, some were loading the trucks, some were washing dishes, some were bagging and packing things to go in the boxes and my group was actually packaging the meals that would go into the boxes. I ended up packing at least 2,400 baked chicken meals, about 1,000 breakfasts, and around 800 tilapia meals. I didn't realize how many boxes were packed everyday, and much less how much man power it took to pull of such a feat.
We followed up the day with a happy hour with our team. It was a lot of fun getting out from behind a computer and being able to do something with my hands instead. There was the added pleasure of being able to give back to the community. Knowing these meals may be some of the only meals that elderly person may have in a single day touched my heart. These shut ins rarely see people, and many hardly make it out and about. The people that deliver these meals may be the only personal contact that receive. I am so glad that I was able to indirectly make someone's day.
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