Volunteers

I'm enjoying sitting in my chair after two hours at the local food pantry. We've been going since last spring, and up until today we'd just gone down half an hour or so after they started and got in line. Today we decided to be wild and crazy – hubby went down at 11:45 and got a number so we had a place in line reserved when we got there. He was #45.

They'd told him they expected the truck to be a bit early, which normally means they can start shuffling people through early. So we decided to arrive at 1:30 – scheduled start time is 2:15. The truck was still being unloaded – and they brought hand truck after hand truck of food products.

The line wasn't too late starting, maybe 5 minutes after the scheduled time. We were surprised that the line wasn't moving very fast. There seemed to be a logjam at the point where people were checking in. Once we got up there, they apologized and explained the reason for the delay – the truck brought in an all-time high 20,000 pounds of food for our county, and some of the volunteers woke up sick this morning and they were short handed.

Those volunteers were doing a stellar job of keeping things going. Some of the men helped with unloading the truck, and the rest were inside opening cases and setting up the food, getting things organized, and loading the tables. Once they're ready to start, they shift gears. There are grocery carts there, and they pull out a couple and the first station loads up what goes in each cart – I don't know how they decide in such a short amount of time how much of each product we get. Anyway, the cart goes to the next station and products are added. By the second or third station, the cart is handed off to the recipient. But the volunteers continue to load up the carts. The only thing we actually get to choose is when we get to the bread table – there are so many different types of bread products, they just tell us how many we get and let us pick what we want. Today we got to pick from the dessert table. I got triple chocolate cupcakes.

Anyway, the bottom line is that #45 and I didn't get home until after 3:30. Even with getting our number, it took us two hours of waiting and then going through the line. But we're good. We plan on going early for our number again. I visited with several people while we were standing in line and the time passed pretty quickly. And I know that even though I was feeling tired by the time we got home and I got things unloaded and put away – that's nothing compared to how tired those poor volunteers will be by the time their day is over.

Every community has organizations like this Food Pantry that exist because of volunteers. They put in hours of what is often tiring – and thankless – work helping take care of their community. Hopefully all of us who come in contact with these people remember to smile and say “thank you” to them. The lady who checks us in at the Food Pantry and helps us figure out how we're supposed to be doing things (#45 should have gotten a number for me as well today – now we know that – and luckily nobody got crabby at me for being in line without a number......I told someone that I was #45 ½) has been so nice and so patient with us and is with everyone. I thought this morning that I wished I had thought to make a Christmas ornament for her. Maybe I'll remember that thought next year.

When you come in contact with volunteers during this Christmas season – and all year, really – remember to smile and thank them for taking time out of their life to help take care of their community.