When I retired, I joined a local women’s philanthropy group, Alamo Women’s Club (AWC). This non-profit organization has been in existence for over 100 years, but what I liked about it was that they give scholarships every year to high school graduating seniors and community college single parents; however, this organization has come to mean so much more to me.
The members of AWC work hard on philanthropy, but, while they’re working on the Annual Authors’ Faire or the quarterly jewelry sales, they develop respect for each other and form new friendships.
One of the women organizes charity work that can be accomplished in a single day. For example, last year, AWC collected coats and clothing for the One Warm Coat Drive in partnership with the Rotary Club of San Ramon Valley. They put out signs and emails in the community and opened the clubhouse doors to accept donations. After a day of sorting, packing and working together, the club had collected over 2,100 items. The event was over in just one day.
Last Monday, I joined another of these events at Kids Against Hunger in Pleasanton. Eight members showed up at 10:30 in the morning. Three women from a local company were also there to work, so the eleven of us got started.
Kids Against Hunger sends packaged food to places around the world where children have little or nothing to eat. Our packages would be going to Poland where Ukrainian refuges needed food.
Before we started, we put on hair nets and cleaned our hands with sanitizer. No cell phones or purses were allowed near the food.
The eleven women worked in four teams. Three women filled printed bags with dehydrated vegetables, soy protein, vitamin powder, and rice. The next worker weighed each bag to ensure it would meet the shipping requirements. She then sealed the top of the bag with a manual sealing machine. After ensuring the bag had no leaks, she placed it in a bin next to her.
When the bins were full, another volunteer replaced the full bin with an empty one. She took the full bin to the boxing station and filled a box with the sealed bags. The box was then taped and labeled for shipment.
We worked 45 minutes and then the head volunteer asked us to take a break to watch a video about the organization. In the video, we learned that Kids Against Hunger was started by an engineer who noticed the great number of children around the world living without adequate nutrition. After consulting with scientists and nutritionists, he created a recipe for a packaged meal to send to these communities. The only ingredient they need to add is water. Each package feeds 6 people a nutritionally-balanced meal. One man in the video who worked with children in Haiti thanked California volunteers for their contribution to the Haitian children.
After the video, the eleven of us got back to work—talking, commenting on the efficient process, and getting to know each other a little bit better. By the time we had put in another half hour of labor, we had packaged enough food for 2,808 meals.
Our hearts were fully satiated.
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