Donuts and Dancing; CT Foodshare meets the Give Back Girls
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Hello awesome readers and followers! So glad you stopped by to read up on our adventures. Coming together to help the community is an honor, not a task, job, or gift. The Gift is what we, the Give Back Girls (GBGs) are receiving when we leave with more than we came with in our hearts. That is exactly how we felt after not one but two Saturdays in January, when we volunteered at CT Food Share in Wallingford.
Connecticut Foodshare is the statewide food bank serving Connecticut, working to end hunger by distributing millions of meals each year through a network of local food pantries, community kitchens, and mobile food programs. They partner with community organizations and volunteers to ensure individuals and families across the state have access to nutritious food and supportive resources.
When we signed up, we understood that our job would be sorting out the donations in the warehouse. No problem, we can do that! Seven GBGs willingly signed up to head to Wallingford on one of two consecutive Saturdays.
We were greeted at the door by Manny, our supervisor for the day. Soooo serious he was…until we loosened him up with our Give Back Girl smiles 😁, humor, and fun way! He had us sign in and meet in the break room for our initial instructions. Then off to wash our hands and glove up.
Our first task, the VERY first task, was to grab a cart of baked goods and bring it to the work area. Not one of us wanted to be the one that spilled our cart of donuts or bread, yet we had to keep up with the young volunteers! So off we went navigating corners and avoiding crashes while pushing our cart through the warehouse. Phew - not one spill!!! Next was the instructions. Pretty simple. Look for open packages and any resemblance of mold. All approved baked goods were packed in banana boxes and loaded on pallets to be taken away. It was easy to get in a groove with the music playing great songs that were full of rhythm for dancing and singing. So we inspected, packed, and stacked to the beat all day long!
One song grabbed at Michelle so she dragged me, GBG-Arlene to do a dance. A bit uncoordinated at first, but a few laughs later we finally got in sync! You can find a video of the craziness HERE!
We had to get back to work if we were going to help CT Foodshare put out the nearly 47 million meals for the year!! Every loaf of bread counts.
The second weekend of sorting was onions, broccoli, lettuce, potatoes, and tomatoes! Yikes - sorting onions! We’ll, at least they didn’t have to cut them. Everyone would have been in tears! 😭 The girls from this garden vegatable weekend have some more pictures here on instagram and here on Facebook.
After all of the baked goods were sorted, strawberries were up next. This was kind of messy and really frustrating to see so many strawberries go to waste. We sorted and saved what we could of the berries and before we knew it, it was time to clean up the stations. Before I end the story, I have to share where all the rejected food went. There was a giant box on a palette that was used for the goods that did not make the cut. The contents of opened boxes were dumped in this receptacle along with the contents of any package that had a hint of mold. The strawberries🍓 that had to go were piled on top of all the rejected baked goods and off they went….to the farms! Yes, these goodies were just the right slop ingredients for piggies. I’m told they will eat anything. So it was good to see that nothing went to waste. I could not help but wonder if the piggies ended up on an extreme sugar high after consuming loads of chocolate cake and donuts! Just imagine them running around the pen at high speeds squealing their little snouts off! 🐷
Thank you CT FoodShare for letting the Give Back Girls help bring nutritious food to our community members! And thank you, our friendly readers, for coming along! Until our next adventure…share some love, share some time, fill your hearts. 💕
Endless energy centered in giving hearts.