Food Bank

I volunteered this past weekend at the Capital Area Food Bank through the Junior League. We first saw a video that explained what the food bank does and who it serves. It's definitely amazing. They have a farm out in Maryland where they grow organic produce and bring it to a market in SE DC to sell. There is only one grocery store in that area of DC. It allows those residents access to foods that they normally wouldn't be able to get. The food bank also does the more expected type of work like taking in donations from food drives and cash donations for buying foods. The other great thing that they do is they work with the grocery stores to salvage food. There is a lot of food that doesn't make it to the grocery store shelves because it's not "pretty" but it's still very edible. In the not so distant past, that food was thrown out!! But, now, the food bank is able to pick up that food from at least a few of the grocery store chains in the area. My particular job for the morning was to help create bags of foods that would be taken to Maryland for people to take home and cook. It was an assembly line. I put in two cans of vegetables and then sent the bag down the line. We put together over 600 bags in about 1 1/2 hours!! It was a great way to start the day.