Today began as a normal work day (teleworked from early in the morning) but I managed to fit in a swim; at 0745, I drove to White River Junction so I could swim for 45 minutes (52 lengths) at UVAC. On the way home, I did errands (Church Office, Notary and Post Office) in Lebanon. By 0945, I resumed my teleworking. At 1500, I left the condo again so I could do some volunteering. Last week, I learned that truckloads of food were going to be delivered to the LISTEN Community Services Food Pantry in Lebanon. I’ve volunteered there on days when the shelves have been nearly empty so this was definitely welcome news. I asked to help unpack and ended up being able to be part of the process (after work) four days this week. Price Chopper and their customers had generously contributed hundreds of individual bags of $10-worth-of-food of all kinds. Possibly unforeseen by them, though, was that this created the additional task of us having to “disassemble” each bag and sort the individual items. I’ve never seen so many boxes and cans! Such a massive undertaking required a lot of organization and room in the storage area but all the effort was still worth reaching the final goal: getting the food to needy Upper Valley families. When I first saw the quantity on Monday, I assumed there was enough food for several weeks. This afternoon, however, I unpacked the last bags and saw that only about 1/4 of all of that bounty was left. Before now, I was already amazed by how the need is so much greater then what there is to provide. But this week drove that point home harder than any other. Never forget: canned food drives aren’t only needed during the holidays! After my session was complete (1630), I drove (via US-4 and US-5) to the King Arthur Bakery in Norwich. From 1700 to 1800, I participated (free food, networking, etc.) in the Volapalooza Event that had been set up to thank Upper Valley Volunteers. I saw a lot of folks I know from several places where I volunteer - it was a fun evening!
