Timesheet #1

Community Service total hours: 2

Yesterday I was finally able to be a part of the Ecumenical Hunger Program (EHP). It took me about 45 minutes in travel time, but it was worth it! Today I participated in the food distribution from 10:00am to 12:05pm. When I arrived I had to wait a couple minutes to speak to Florence, though I was not the only one. There was another lady waiting to meet with her and told her she could help me before; she was in no rush. I felt bad because I got the impression that Florence had a tight agenda with meetings to go to. Nevertheless, we got the paper work done and my work began.

I worked with Tiana who has been working for EHP since October of last year. Tiana is in charge of making the boxes for distribution. There are five different kinds of boxes: supplement, small, medium, large and extra large. The number of people in the family determines the size of the box the family will receive. The supplement bags were smaller bags for individuals that might be living in a shelter where cooking is not permitted or for those who don’t have access to a kitchen. The boxes contain canned vegetables or corn, rice, beans, cereal, instant potatoes (not very popular), bread, cartons of eggs, frozen meats like chicken, steak, pork, juice, pasta, and pastries. The food that is included in the boxes is determined by the supply and what is available. Today they didn’t get a supply of bread until 30 minutes after the distribution started. There were a couple people that asked about pastries and bread. If some people asks for more of something its likely that they are given a couple extra.

Food distribution is open to anyone that is in need. The only proof that needs to be provided is an address and medical cards in the case of children. The information is recorded so that they have a record of the people that are going to need food. It also helps them determine how much food they need because they’ll know how many people are in the family.

My first day there was incredible. It filled me with joy to see how people with needs are getting the help that they need. I was in charge of checking people in and handing over their cart of food. On the clipboard there were three rows signature, address, number of family and a question if it was their first time being there. I was responsible for making sure that the correct information was written down; if the person did not right thing down the information correctly I would write down their client number. There were a couple individuals that stood out to me that day. There was one lady that Tiana recognized. The lady would to get bagels and eggs only. Tiana was curious why she didn’t register so that she can take all the food she needed. When I spoke to the lady in Spanish she told me that she recently underwent a surgery and could not take the groceries back to her house because of the weight. It turned out that she was registered and qualified for a medium-size cart of food but only took eggs and bagels because it was what she could offer her daughter who is a student at UC Davis. On my way to school leaving EHP I saw the lady and offered her a ride to here house. I learned that she rents someone's garage. I told her that if she wanted to I could give her a ride to her home with the groceries so that her family can have the food they need.  There was another lady that really stood out to me. After giving her the cart of food she thanked us multiple times and kept looking at the cart of food and said how grateful she was to finally have some food. She had a family of six.

I made a couple observations through my volunteer hours. I saw that EHP has a very small number of offices available and a large community to serve. It was not until recently that they began to try to create more space. I noticed that Florence had a lot of responsibilities at EHP. There were a couple question that I plan to ask in my next visit. I would like to know if they partner/collaborate with any other organizations, where their food source comes from, what other services do they offer, if someone is a homeless and can't really provide a physical address what do they do, to name a few. Although it took a while for me to get in contact with them it was worth it because I really look forward to going back and learning more about the other resources EHP assists families and individuals with.