Volunteer work day for me

BMC is generously allowing employees to take paid time to volunteer for Hurricane relief. So a group of us tech writers volunteered at the Capital Area Food Bank in Austin. They distribute food and grocery items to agencies and hurricane evacuees every day. Nearly all of the warehouse work is volunteer-based.

In the morning, we accepted new food donations from food drives, which meant getting items out of giant 5x5x5 foot boxes, inspecting and accepting or discarding based on their documented standards, wiping them down with a mild disinfectant, and putting them on a snail's pace conveyor belt. Other volunteers put the food items into boxes categorized by things like "mixed vegetables" or "beans" or "meat." The tough sorting is something like a can of black olives with jalapeños. Are those condiments or vegetables? The debate continues.

The boxes are filled to a certain weight limit (usually 35 pounds or so!) and then sorted for storage in the warehouse. They have an web-based inventory system, so the agencies they serve "shop" online and request the items they need. IT is everywhere, right?

In the afternoon, we formed an assembly line of sorts to put together bags of assorted food items for Healthy Options Project for the Elderly (HOPE). They offer groceries to fixed-income elderly folks. I believe we assembled 900 450 bags. It went pretty fast since we were joined by a team from Dell.

Before we left, we got a tour of the huge freezer. It was 0 degrees Farenheit and you don't stay in there longer than 3 minutes without donning a parka. Brr.

I learned a lot about food. I'll probably shop differently from now on, inspecting expiration dates more closely for one thing. Then again, one of the regular volunteers told us that they've found cans of food from the 40s that is still perfectly fine. He said "Once they figured out vaccuum packing, there's no way for the food to spoil." Hm. Not sure how good it would taste though! After sorting through entire boxes of unusable donations, I'll also put more thought into what I donate. I'll make sure my donated items are still sealed, buy cans in bulk to donate, and throw it out myself if it needs to be thrown out.

By the end of the day I was dead tired from being on my feet all day. But we processed 8,400 pounds of food which can make 6,720 meals. Thanks BMC for the chance to help out!