Week 25 - Feed My Starving Children and the Hunger Walk

This week we went back to Feed My Starving Children, to their food packing location in Schaumberg, IL.  We brought along our friends Vicki and Brian, who, you may remember, also went with Jen to the House of Mary and Joseph recently (Week 22).  They had never been to FMSC before, but they had heard about how much we enjoyed working there, and asked if we could book a night together.

Feed My Starving Children is a Christian organization that is devoted to feeding hungry children all over the world.  As I have mentioned in previous posts (Week 3, Week 4, Week19), they have come up with a formula for a nutritious paste that is ideally suited for ingestion and digestion by people who are actually starving and who could not eat normal food in sufficient quantities to bring them back from the brink.  The paste consists of four things - powdered chicken flavoring and proteins, dried vegetable flakes, soy powder (for more protein) and rice, which is the most universally accepted grain around the world both culturally and with respect to ease of digestion and food allergies.  In short, more people can and will eat rice than any other grain.  These ingredients are mixed with water and create the nourishing mush that has saved many thousands of lives.  They have done and continue to do a huge amount of good work, and they do it with one of the highest efficiency ratings of any of the large charities.  I have included much more about them in previous weeks.

This visit was fun for Jen and I in a couple of ways.  First of all, it was great to have Vicki and Brian along.  They seemed to really enjoy the process, and were fascinated at how every part of the night was designed to  quickly and efficiently teach people how to pack and then get as much food out the door as possible.  The other great thing was that this was the first time that we actually packed food.  In the past, we have volunteered for the warehouse crew because it is hard to get a spot at a table with only two people.  There are lots of groups that come and work, and they like to work together, so we did support jobs instead.  With four of us, we were able to get on a packing table right away.  The drive to pack as much as possible, once you are standing there doing it, is really compelling.  We were given a pretty easy goal, since there were a lot of young girl scouts working the other half of our table, but we immediately declared a higher one.  We missed that goal, but still beat the one we were given a about 50%.  Since there were a lot of young people working that night, they played music from a bunch of Disney movies while we were packing, so we kind of danced the night away.  When Hakuna Matata plays, you dance, whether you mean to or not...  In any case it made for a great night.  When we were done, we had done this:

That means it was a decent night.  We have done more boxes than this on similar week night sessions, but with a lot of young girls, there was some time lost to pictures and other distractions.  Since it seems like the girls will want to come back and work more, losing a little efficiency is worth the long term benefits!

The food we packed was headed for Burkina Faso, on the East coast of Africa.  You can see here where the shipments around ours were headed:

Basically, we all had a good time, and the night ended with Vicki and Brian asking about when we could all go back to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and about other opportunities.  I think we have created a couple of converts...

The other thing we talked about that night was the Hunger Walk, a 5K walk that benefits the Greater Chicago Food Depository and its member agencies.  Jen and Vicki had decided to walk in it, and they made some final plans.  The walk happened this morning, beginning at Soldier Field and walking en masse down the lakefront path to 31st street and back again.  Jen told me that is was quite an undertaking due to the huge turnout.  They had a record-breaking 10,000 people come out and walk.  Those who walked could raise money for the GCFD, or they could earn credits for the member agency of their choice to be used in the purchase of food from the GCFD.  Jen and Vicki walked for, and with our friends from the Lakeview Pantry.  This is a giant fundraiser for everyone involved, and it is great that they got so many people.  Jen took this picture after the walk:

This may be the largest petition ever signed, and it was signed by lots and lots of the participants.  This kind of thing always brings up two  ideas for me, and I think they are at the heart of helping to feed people.  The first is to be amazed at how many people come out and support activities like this.  It is truly astonishing, the amount of good work that is being done.  On the other hand, I always shudder to thing about all the people who still do not have enough.  For the last fifteen years or so, the nations of the earth have grown enough food to give every last person on earth 2800 calories per day, more than enough to live on.  There is enough food for everyone, and there has been for a while.  But there are still millions who are hungry every day, and more millions who are getting fat to the point of unhealthiness.  It seems like it should be a no brain-er, but of course it is not.  Things will never be equal, but there is a huge gulf between what we are doing now and equality.  It seems like it is time to start building a bridge.  The people who work tirelessly at the GCFD and the other kitchens, pantries and shelter that work with them are trying to lay the foundations of that bridge, and I, for one, intend to do all I can to help them, because it has to be demoralizing to face the statistics every day.  We could feed everyone but we don't.  And in spite of that, these people are still trying.  For that, they deserve our respect, and all the help we can possibly give them.

For more about FMSC, go to: Feed My Starving Children

For more about the GCFD, go to: Greater Chicago Food Depository

Week 24 - Habitat for Humanity

This week was a very busy one at the theater, so we decided to give to a good cause this week.  The cause we chose is one we have been familiar with for a long time - Habitat for Humanity.

I think this is a pretty well known group, but in case you are not familiar, Habitat for Humanity is an  organization whose mission is to provide housing for everyone who needs it.  They operate around the world and in the US, with nine affiliate offices in the Chicago area.  As with many of the large non profits we have worked with, HFH has refined its process over time so that the most possible work can be done with the resources that come their way.  They have a great website, and so I will let them describe the process used to give someone a new home:

"What is Habitat for Humanity International?

• A nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry that has helped to build over 500,000 decent, affordable houses and served 2.5 million people worldwide.
• Our vision: a world where everyone has a decent place to live.
• Founded in 1976 by Millard Fuller and his wife, Linda.

	Habitat volunteers and homeowners build side-by-side in New Orleans, Louisiana

How does it work?

• Through volunteer labor and donations of money and materials, Habitat builds and rehabilitates simple, decent houses alongside our homeowner partner families.
• In addition to a down payment and monthly mortgage payments, homeowners invest hundreds of hours of their own labor into building their Habitat house and the houses of others.
• Habitat houses are sold to partner families at no profit and financed with affordable loans.
• The homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments are used to build still more Habitat houses.

How are partner families selected?

• Families in need of decent shelter apply to local Habitat affiliates.
• The affiliate’s family selection committee chooses homeowners based on their level of need, their willingness to become partners in the program and their ability to repay the loan.
• Every affiliate follows a nondiscriminatory policy of family selection.
• Neither race nor religion is a factor in choosing the families who receive Habitat houses."

When Jen and I go out into the world to volunteer, we see two huge needs - food and shelter.  If you look back on our posts, you will see that almost all of the work we have done is related in some way to getting food to those that don't have enough.  This group is fighting the other half of the battle, and they are one of a small number of groups that are.  Obviously food is a more urgent need, and much easier to fulfill, and I am  glad that so many groups are handing out food, but as happy as I am, I wish that more groups were thinking about and working on the problem of providing affordable housing.  There are lots of reasons not to - people don't want low cost housing near them, local governments don't have resources or inclination to help, and private investors want a return on their investment.  In spite of all of those things and all of the other challenges, Habitat for Humanity is still trying to solve the problem.  I think they are doing heroic work, and I hope that they can continue to expand their operations.

You can see a quick slide show introduction to their work HERE.

If you would like more information, visit Habitat for Humanity.

Week 23 - Common Pantry and FHMJ

This was another double week for Jen and I with a night serving dinner at the Franciscan House of Mary and Joseph and a night distributing food at Common Pantry, a food pantry that has been around for a long time, but is new to us.

We went to FHMJ on Tuesday and had a fairly normal night there serving dinner to shelter guests before they bedded down for the night.  We did get to see Issac, the team leader who was there on our first night, which was nice.  We also met a nice young woman who had recently completed a degree in behavioral science and was waiting to hear if she had been accepted into school for her Master's degree work, heading toward becoming a psychologist.  I think she enjoyed working with us, and found some professional interest in the experience as well.  It was kind of a light night in terms of volume, both for the women and the men, so everything was pretty low key.  As always, we had a good time.  To see more about our experiences at FHMJ, check out previous posts from Week 11, Week 14, Week 17 and Week 22.

The bigger news of the week was trying out a new food pantry, Common Pantry.  This is the closest food pantry to our house in the city, and covers an area bounded by Diversey, Kedzie, Lawrence and Ravenswood.  They distribute food once per week, on Wednesdays and also do once per month produce distribution as well as home deliveries.  The pantry has been operating continuously since 1967 making it the oldest continuously operating pantry in the city and beating out our friends at the Lakeview Pantry, who cover the geographic areas directly to the East,  by about five years.  They have been operating out of their current location on Damen Ave. since 1985, adjacent to a church.  In the near future, the pantry will celebrate its 45th birthday with a party and the release of a book written from the stories told to them by their clients about why they came to the pantry and how the pantry has helped them.

There are a couple things that make this pantry a little different from others we have been to.  The first is that clients do not pack their own food.  Rather, Jen and I and a couple others worked in a small room packing up preset amounts of food based on family size.  The second unusual thing is that the clients are given a number of points based on the size of their family, and while the pantry workers pack up the pre-determined food list, the clients can "spend" their points in the front room of the pantry to things that are not on the standard list of necessities.  For example, clients can get toiletry items, pre-made sandwiches, dairy items, produce,etc.  The idea behind this is two-fold.  The first and most important is dignity.  A lot of the people who come to the pantry do so because they have few viable choices in their life, and giving them a choice about the food they receive helps restore a small measure of normalcy and control in their lives.  The second is more practical - the clients can choose things they need and want and are therefore more likely to get the most out of the service that is available.  When we work at the Lakeview pantry, the selection of food is pretty much always the same, and I have heard clients turn down items saying, "I have too much of that at home already!"  The system at Common pantry is designer to reduce that problem and give people a chance to get what they need.

As for our experience at the Pantry, Jen and I had a blast.  I got there a little later than Jen, and was mistaken for a client at first, which was a new experience for me, but quickly sorted things out and got to work.  The work space in the pantry is pretty small, so you get to know your co-workers pretty well.  We really enjoyed the pace of the work because unlike other places we have been it was pretty laid back.  We were able to serve everyone who was there, but because of the "shopping" aspect of things, there is time to pull the food orders together without rushing.  As a result, we got to chat with the other volunteers and get to know Scott, the pantry's director.  One of our co-workers was a woman who is interested in starting a food pantry at her church.  She was working her way around the city, a lot like we are, trying to learn about what works and what doesn't, and basically teach herself how to start a pantry.  It was really inspiring to talk with her.  She was not someone who had studied non-profit growth strategies or anything like that.  Instead, she just felt called to do something more significant with her life and so she is moving down this path to starting a pantry.  The sheer altruism of it all made me want to help her, and I think she will not have trouble getting others to see the same vision she does.

Everyone we met was fun and friendly, and clearly dedicated to the pantry.  Many of them were obvious "regulars" and knew the staff, the clients, and the way the pantry works very well.  While we were there, we scheduled more time with them, so I will have more to tell in a few weeks.

While I was there, I shot a couple pictures.  This is the front room of the pantry, where the clients do their shopping.  Scott can be seen behind the rack of food...

This is the back room, where we packed the food for the clients...

For more information about the FHMJ, go to:

Franciscan House of Mary and Joseph

For more information about Common Pantry, go to:

Common Pantry

Week 22 - Franciscan House of Mary and Joseph

This week was supposed to be Jen and I working our "regular" shift at the Franciscan House of Mary and Joseph, but I had a last minute family commitment come up, and so Jen brought her friend Vicki and Vicki's husband Brian along instead.  For my absence, I gave some money to FHMJ instead.  If you are just catching up with us, you can read about the mission of the House and some of our experiences there in previous posts (Week 11, Week 14, Week 17).

Since I was not there, I have only second hand information to give you, but it sounds like it was a fairly usual night at FHMJ - some excitement and some regularity.  The first and most important news is that Vicki and Brian had a good time.  Vicki had been to the House once before with Jen as part of a work day to clean the dormitories, sponsored by a church.  That work day was, in fact, how Jen found out about the shelter and how we came to work there on a regular basis.  It was Brian's first time working at a shelter, and he was fascinated and surprised by the experience.  He mentioned that he was very surprised to see how many of the people there did not look like they would be staying in a homeless shelter.  This is something we have come to expect as we have worked with the homeless and those who need the help of shelters and pantries - a lot of times they look like everyone else.  He manned the sandwich line, which means that he had to tell people "no" a lot.  That is because they limit people to one sandwich each until it is clear that everyone has gotten one and they have fed the people outside who won't get a bed for the night.  I am told he did a great job for his first time out.

Jen tells me that it was an average night in terms of volume, but that some of the staffing was different than we are used to.  There was a woman staffing the kitchen that Jen had not met before who made the soup that night.    Jen did not catch her name, but was told by the women patrons that they like it better when this lady makes the soup.  The discipline during the men's session was a little less than usual, and so there was a little scuffle and Jen got hit on by a guy who we have seen there a lot.  He is almost always drunk, and he loves Jen.  It is fun for me when I am there because I get to swell up a little and tell him that she belongs to me. (Don't get me wrong.  Jen doesn't belong to anyone, least of all me.  She is her own woman and I would not change that - it is just fun to remind this guy that he is there to eat and go to bed...)  Walter (the guy) always gives Jen a little more room after I talk to him.

In any case, it sounded like another good night at the shelter.  More than a hundred men and women got a meal and a place to sleep, and Jen and Vicki and Brian had a good volunteer experience.

We will both be heading there next week, and as well as going to a new place, Common Pantry.  Come back next week and read all about it!

For more information about FHMJ go to:

Franciscan House of Mary and Joseph