At the end of 2011, my wife Jen and I decided we would give of either our time or our money at least once per week in 2012. We decided to donate at least two hours of our time or at least $25 each week. As we began the new year, many of our friends were interested in our new commitment, and so I decided to write about the organizations we work with and the experiences we have. The stories told here are meant to shed some light on volunteering - the kind of work that is out there, and the clientele that is served, and to provide information about who is making a difference out there, and what you can do to help. Please come back often and share our experiences as we move through our giving year.

Also, we are always looking for new organizations to work with, groups that are doing good work and could use either our hands or our money. If you know of a volunteer opportunity or worthy cause, please leave it in a comment. Thanks for your help!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Week 35 - The Red Cloud Indian School

It has been a while since we gave money to an organization rather than giving time.  It has also been a while since we gave either money or time to a new organization.  This week, our busy schedules and a great opportunity to make a difference met in a happy coincidence.

In the way of an explanation, we must begin with the sharing of data.  Jen and I have spent our year giving time and money to many organizations.  Sometimes we do this by way of the internet.  Apparently, when a person give to charities over the internet, there is a group of non-profit fairies who make sure that your address is given to every other charity in the world.  All of those charities have now begun sending us mail.  Some of the mail is from serious organizations doing widespread good.  Other mail is from small focused charities aiming at one particular problem in one particular place.  Some organizations are clearly above board while others are pretty shady.  The sheer volume of mail is staggering, but we try to look at all of it because we do like to look for new opportunities to give.

Enter a small envelope from the Red Cloud Indian School.  On the day we got it, there was not a lot of mail for a change.  Jen took a look first, and told me I had to read it too.  The school is located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  It was founded in 1888, just after the reservation was established, by the historic Chief Red Cloud as a tool to fight the poverty and hopelessness that was attacking the Lakota (Sioux) people then and which is still attacking them now.  In order to understand the challenges this school faces, you have to first understand the Reservation.

Pine Ridge is the second largest reservation in the US, covering 2.8 million acres.  It houses somewhere between 28,000 and 40,000 Lakota tribesmen and women.  The number is hard to pin down because of intense poverty and a reluctance to cooperate with the US government.  Eighty percent of the reservation's resident are unemployed.  Forty-nine  percent of them live below the federal poverty line.  Shannon County, where the reservation is located, is the second poorest county in the US, with an average per capita income of $6,286.  While the poverty numbers are shocking, the more disturbing numbers have to do with young people on the reservation.

Each year, most states conduct a survey relating to youth risk behaviors.  These are things like smoking, alcohol use, suicide, and sexual activity.  The Red Cloud Indian School gives those statistics for the reservation, but I was curious, so I looked up the stats for all of South Dakota so I could compare them.  The data is kind of horrifying.

In 2011, 47% of the high school students in South Dakota said they had engaged in sexual intercourse at least once in their lives.  On the reservation, that number is 67%.  In South Dakota, 69% of high school students have tried alcohol.  At Pine Ridge, the number is 88%.  The numbers for cigarette and marijuana use in South Dakota as a whole were 48% and 33% respectively.  On the reservation, those numbers are 90% and 80%.  The most frightening numbers are these:  18% of South Dakota high school students have considered suicide and 8% have tried.  For those kids living on Pine Ridge, the numbers are 31% and 15% - nearly double.  These are not numbers for the population as a whole - they are for kids, aged 13 to 19.  If that does not speak of the despair that exists on the reservation, I don't know what would.  Also, just to give a local perspective, I looked up these numbers for Chicago.  In all areas, they are slightly higher than the South Dakota numbers, and still drastically lower than the Pine Ridge numbers.

So these numbers combined with the poverty stats tell us a few things.  Pine Ridge has a lot of people, young and old, who are very poor.  It has a lot of people who use alcohol and drugs, and it has a lot of young people who have a lot of things distracting them from getting the education that might let them leave the reservation or stay and help improve the conditions.  This is where the Red Cloud Indian School comes in.

For over 100 years, they have been educating students (currently about 600 per year) from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.  They provide them with the services they need to stay focused on school, from food to counseling to transportation.  Their goal is to create proud, powerful Lakota citizens, and by all appearances, they pursue that goal relentlessly, even in the face of the hardship that is all around them.  It is a lofty goal and  a moving story, and we were moved to help them.

Certainly there are children in Chicago who could use our help, and we would like to help them too, but thankfully we live in a city where there are many people of means, and many organizations doing very good work to help children find a better life.  While I am sure that this school is not the only group on the reservation trying to find a brighter future, I also know that there are not nearly as many groups as we have here.  Help is harder to find on the reservation because nobody has anything.  Sometime, people say that the casinos give the Indians all the money they need, but it that is not even close to true.  The Lakota do have a casino, and if the revenue from that casino was distributed evenly among the people living on the reservation, it would amount to about 15 cents per person per month.  Hardly a windfall...  Life is hard on the reservation - harder than almost anywhere else in the country.  This school is trying to make it better, and Jen and I were proud to help them.

If you are interested in more information about the school, they have a very good website at Red Cloud Indian School.


Week 34 - Common Pantry

This week, we went back to Common Pantry, the closest food pantry to our house, to work with Scott, the manager, and the incredibly fun and devoted group of people there.

To give a quick refresher, Common Pantry distributes food once a week, on Wednesdays in both the afternoon and evenings.  They also do some home delivery and produce distribution at other times during the week, but Wednesdays are the big day. (If you want a few more details, please check on previous posts, especially Week 23).  This time, Jen got to do a new job.  She was one of the people who assisted people as they "shopped" for the food they get to choose themselves.  At this pantry, the goal is to give people a sense of independence to act as counter point to the feelings of dependence brought on by needing to go to a pantry in the first place.  The way they encourage that independence is to give every patron a certain number of points.  These points can be used to pick foods that are not part of the normal package.  They can load up on things they like, or get things they need that are not readily available in the regular distribution.

One thing Jen and I have noticed is that if you get food from a pantry, even from different pantries around the city, you tend to get a lot of the same thing.  Certain foods are just easier to keep fresh or are just more available.  I have been told by many pantry patrons, here and elsewhere, that they have three jars of peanut butter and even more jelly at home, and please don't make me take any more of that stuff!  Canned goods are really prevalent, and toiletries are scarce.  If you want to make a big difference in the life of people who are struggling, donate 50 tubes of toothpaste to your nearest pantry - they never have enough.  If you are considering donating canned beef stew, pick something else.  That stuff is always in stock.  If you want to give soup, give something other than tomato or chicken noodle.  Even if it seems like a long shot in the taste department, someone will be thrilled to try that unusual soup instead of another can of generic tomato.

Because of all this sameness, food can get pretty boring in a big hurry.  By giving the patrons a choice, the pantry is able to use all of the food it gets in from food drives.  That stuff is usually of wide variety and not easily categorized.  More accurately, it does not always fit well with the large shipments of product from places like the Greater Chicago Food Depository.  By putting in out in the choice section, there is no need to give everyone an equal share.  What is there is there, and when it is gone, it is gone.  But it still can provide treats for people who can really use them.

So... Jen spent the night helping the patrons see what was available for them and helping them  pick it out.  In some cases, that meant helping someone find that thing they really need.  In others, it meant reminding them that they were out of points.  Almost always, it meant reminding them that other people were behind them waiting to get in.  Since the pantry is quite small, there is only room for two people to shop at a time, and it is hard to make sure everyone gets a turn.

I spent the night manning the USDA section, which is part of the predetermined allotment of food that is given to the patrons.  I had a good time working with two other guys who were handling the meat and the rest of the packaged food.  It was a busy night for the pantry, serving 35 patrons who account for well over 100 hungry people.  This time we have a lot of big families, with seven or eight family members.  These are always hard for the patrons because they are given so much food that they can barely carry it.  Some bring along helpers, but we also try to at least help them get it out to the street.

Both Jen and I had a great night, and we both remarked to each other about how great the entire staff and volunteer corps are at this pantry.  Every time we are there, we meet new people, re-connect with those we know and spend a lot of time laughing along to the work.  It is always a good time for us.

To learn more about the pantry, go to Common Pantry


Saturday, August 18, 2012

Week 33 - Feed My Starving Children

This week we returned to Feed My Starving Children to help pack powdered meals that will be distributed to starving children all over the world.  We have been coming to this center a lot lately, often bringing friends, but this time we were just by ourselves.

Since we did not have enough people to pack at a table (see previous posts for a description of how this all works...) we decided to volunteer for the warehouse crew.  That is the crew that picks up the completed cases of food and keeps the packing tables stocked with raw materials.  On this night, we volunteered to scoop rice and soy powder into the bins that are used at the table to pack.  It involves standing in front of either a 2000# pound sack of rice or a great big box of soy nuggets and scooping out the respective materials with a gallon sized scoop.  It is one of those jobs that is slow at the beginning and the end, but then gets really hectic in the middle.  As usual, we had a great time doing it.  The crowd was large and full of people who were looking to have fun and do a lot of good.  The staff was also pushing for a big night because the previous packing session had not done very well and they were about to complete a shipment headed for Swaziland.

It was a good night of work, and the packers did a pretty good job.  We ended up with 92 boxes, which is, I think, a high for any session Jen and I have been working at.


I am not sure how this number of boxes compares to the number of people working in the session.  They never give that number, so it is hard to tell how empirically fast we were going.  In theory, we should be able to pack one box for everyone working in a session, but I feel like we had more than 92 people at this session.  It is not really important, but it is kind of fun to keep track of it.  What is important is how many meals we prepped for Africa.  The "Kids Fed" number refers to how many children will eat for a year because of this shipment.

For the first time this week we noticed that they are keeping track of the highest totals of boxes packed in a session.  They put up a leader board on the wall of the packing floor.  They did not reference it while we were there, but it is still kind of neat to have something to shoot for.  It also adjusts a little for the size of the crew, in that it gives a number for average boxes from a cell, which is two packing stations loading a single box at a time.  A cell is staffed with 11 to 15 people, depending on how the jobs break down.  The picture I got is a little fuzzy, but you can still see what the board says...


The other thing that was a little new this session was that we heard a new story about one of the kids who received FMSC food.  They often tell these stories because they are kind of amazing.  This one stood out because instead of being on a video, the story was told with laminated pictures that I could also photograph. The following image is of a little boy named Moses, aged four weeks, when he was first brought to a care point that distributes FMSC Manna Packs.  He was malnourished and sick, barely clinging to life:


Moses was given FMSC food as well as medical care.  After a four months,  he looked like this:


Moses went on receiving food and care, and today, three and a half years later, he looks like this:


He is now a healthy young boy, enrolled in school, happy and healthy.  Many of the care points and partner organizations on the ground in the countries where this food is sent use the food as the first step to try to change whole communities.  Kids who are served also have access to schools referred to as leadership academies, with the goal of teaching the children a sense of community responsibility.  They are taught the skills that can lift them out of poverty so that they can turn around and help others.  The aid structure helps them in the moment, and the near term, but also long term so that whole communities are getting the benefits. It is really an inspired system.

So it was another good week.  Next week we will be headed back to Common Pantry.  Come back and read all about it!

If you want more information on FMSC, go to Feed My Starving Children.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Week 32 - The Greater Chicago Food Depository

This week we returned to the Greater Chicago Food Depository for one of their Wednesday re-pack sessions.  The last time we did this, we wound up handling 15,000 pounds of potatoes, and we were unsure what this session would bring.  (To read more about our other work at GCFD, check out previous posts!)  To make things a little more interesting we brought along one of our friends, Sarah.

As it turned out, we had what turned out to be the first kind of disappointing night of our whole volunteering adventure.  It began when we found out that instead of re-packing food, we would be working on the flex line packing emergency food boxes.  Now, don't get me wrong - packing these boxes is a lot of fun, and really helps a lot of people, but we were hoping to do something new and interesting.  The second part of the disappointment came as we worked.

When you pack emergency food boxes, you add one foodstuff to a box that moves along a long conveyor.  You put your food, whatever it is, in the same place in every box, and things are supposed to move pretty quickly.  A new box rolls by about every ten seconds.  The line includes people making boxes and setting them on the line, people filling the boxes with food, people labeling the boxes, and then a series of people who weigh each box, run it through a machine that tapes the top and bottom closed and then lift the box on to a pallet.  Things usually move so fast that there is a whole other round of people who just keep food stock at the fingertips of the box filler and still a third group that does nothing but clean up the packing materials shed by all of the food that is used.

Sadly, on this night, things just did not go very well.  It takes everyone working correctly, something like a hundred bodies all doing exactly the right thing, to have the line work efficiently.  It also takes everyone a little while to get up to speed at the beginning.  This time, it took a long time for people to get up to speed, and so we had to keep stopping the line.  Then, once everyone learned their job, the tape machine kept fouling.  We would run about five boxes and then stop the line for a minute or two while the tape was re-set in the machine and then do it all over again.  What is usually a great, rhythmic groove of a task tuned into a stumbling, frustrating night of standing around a lot.  It seems like the kind of thing I should not complain about, but the constant starting and stopping made what is usually enjoyable teamwork into something much less fun.

I don't want to make it seem like this night was no fun.  We still enjoyed being at the GCFD and we enjoyed working with Sarah.  The night just came as a surprising contrast to all of the other work we have done around the city.  We still did a bunch of good.  We packed 1,039 boxes of food.  About half of these were individual food boxes, designed to have enough food to feed as single person for 3 to 4 days.  The others were family food boxes, designed to feed a family of four for the same time period.  In all, we packed 29,475 pounds of food.  That may seem like a huge amount, but we could have done a lot more if the line had been working more efficiently.  Nonetheless, I am proud of what we did accomplish.  Jen and Sarah were too.  Here is what they looked like when we took a break in the middle of the session:


While we were at the Depository, we also found out a few new facts.  The first was that in a our city of 5 million people, 5.5 million individual visits to food pantries were reported last year.  In Cook county, 1 in 6 people are food insecure, which means they are not sure if they will see their next meal.  There is not part of Cook county in which some part of the population is food insecure, and in some areas, the number is as high as 1 in 3.  That is kind of depressing, given that it means that literally everywhere you look in this city, there are people without enough to eat.

The other news was more upbeat.  It turns out that the GCFD plants and harvests its own corn crop.  Apparently, a person in Marengo, about a hour west of the city, allows the GCFD to use their land to grow corn.  Then they get volunteers to harvest the corn by hand because they don't have the machinery to do it any other way, bring it back to the city and give it to those that need it.  Jen and I thought this was infinitely cool, and we may try to get on a crew to help pick corn.  Watch in the coming weeks to see how that works out!

So, even though it was a disappointing week, we still had a good time and found about another neat way that the GCFD is helping people.

To learn more about the GCFD, go to Greater Chicago Food Depository


Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Week 31 - Lakeview Pantry

This week was a very busy one for Jen and I.  We changed apartments within the same building, which is the same as moving, but with no truck.  Our place is a shambles, but we took time out to get back to our friends at Lakeview Pantry, and as it turned out, it was a good thing we did.

I had been feeling sick with a cold most of the week, and so I was a little reluctant to go work.  I almost bowed out because the last couple times we have been at the Pantry, there was a very small crowd.  I sucked it up and decided to go because we always have fun there, and I thought it would pick me up.  When we got there, things were humming along as usual, with everyone working to get ready for distribution.  Jen and I have become "meat experts" because we know how much to bring out and in what quantities, and so we jumped right in with that.

Because the supply of meat to the Pantry varies from week to week, there people who pull the meat for distribution have to look at what is in the fridge and the freezer and come up with four categories of offering - beef, chicken, pork, fish, turkey, sausage, miscellaneous.  You have to have at least 20, but preferably 30 of something in order to call it a category.  Sometimes, this means you have very odd groupings.  Usually, it is beef, chicken, pork and miscellaneous, but sometimes you have to get creative.  The other thing s that you have to arrange to make sure you give away fresh items before frozen because they will go bad other wise.  This time it was easy because there was plenty of meat, or so we thought...

When the doors opened, a tidal wave of people came in.  It was the biggest crowd I have yet seen at the Pantry, and it included some of the more "interesting" patrons we have come to know.  Sadly, I did not get the total number of people we served that night, or the total number of people fed (this number includes the families).  Average is about 40 patrons who feed something less than 100 people.  I bet the number of patrons was over 50, with a really big number of people fed, because it seemed like every other patron was collecting food for a family of five or six people.  Long story short, it was a big night.

For all that it was busy, it was also a lot of fun.  The line moved pretty well because we had a lot of experienced volunteers.  When it gets busy like this was, you have to set food out and let them pick what they want, without letting them look at the shelf behind you and ask for specifics.  We try to make sure people get what they want when we can, but when it gets this busy, that kind of specific choice has to go by the wayside.  So the line kept moving.  The patrons were very patient, and did not grumble much, which we do see sometimes when there is a long wait.  It was very warm, but everyone did their best to coexist, and it was a very pleasant night.

As it turned out, we had to have volunteers stock more meat and milk and eggs before the night was over because the demand was so high.  I was giving out canned goods - tuna, beef stew, veggies, applesauce, peanut butter and jelly, soup, etc. and while I did have enough, for most things, I ran out of selection choices as the night went on.  By the end, all of the volunteers were just about dead on our feet.  When you distribute, you have be "on" for the patrons.  You have to chat them up a little and talk them through the choices you have for them.  That kind of focused attention helps the patrons have a positive experience, but when there are this many people, that positive social energy combined with the physicality of handing out the food makes for an exhausting combination.  In spite of that, I think all the volunteers had a really good time.  Everyone was very cheerful at the end, and amazed at how much food we gave out.  We all cleaned up together and left thinking very positive thoughts.

Even though that kind of effort did my cold no favors, it did great things for my spirit, and I was really glad I decided to come.


To learn more about the Pantry, visit Lakeview Pantry.


Week 30 - Feed My Starving Children

Well, friends, it has been a busy summer.  So busy, in fact, that I have once again gone two weeks without finding time to write about our volunteering adventures.  I apologize for that, and I will try to stay up to date for the rest of summer, at least.

So, on with the story telling...  This week we returned once again to Feed My Starving Children.  If you are not familiar with their work, please check out the previous posts on the blog to get some background.  It seems that our new hobby when it comes to volunteering is to take along our friends, and this week was no different.  This time, we took along Jen's cousin Paula and her daughter, Allie who is ten years old.  After the last time with Vicki and Brian, we realized that FMSC is really accessible for people who have not volunteered before, and is also a great way to get kids in the habit of helping others.  We know that Paula and Allie are interested in volunteering, and it seemed a natural thing to bring them along.  This is what they looked like before we started:


The shift started as it always does, with a quick talk and a video about what FMSC does, followed by everyone washing their hands and moving to the production area for lessons about what to do and how.  We stayed together and grabbed a table to pack.  We were short one person to fill all the positions, so we asked for a volunteer and got a very nice older man who got into the groove with us.  It takes a little getting used to the process when you first start, but both Allie and Paula took to it very well.  In no time at all, we were really cruising.  Two tables pack one box together and the other table we were paired with we moving as well.  We got to a point where we could make up a whole box worth of bags and get them packed into the case in about 15 minutes.  On the night, we packed about 9 boxes, which is a little above average.  We had a great time.  As much as Jen and I love to do this work, we love it even more with our friends around to goof around with.

The session ended after about an hour of actual packing, and the staff led us through the clean up process.  Allie was great through all of this - she is a very responsible young lady, and was very quick to do her part.  After clean up, we prayed over the food in an effort to help it get where it was needed (This shipment was going to Haiti).  FMSC has a 99.95% success rate of getting their food to the people who need it, in spite of rough weather, civil strife and the other obstacles that stand in their way.  They attribute this success rate to praying over the food for three things - that the food gets where it is going, that the people who need the food get is and are nourished by it, and that the people who packed the food continue to be inspired to help those who need it.

After that, there is a sample of the food available for tasting, and there is one more video about FMSC and about how they rely on donations to do all of their work.  Then they reveal how the packing went.  We had a huge group of workers at this session, and so we did very well.


In one hour, we packed over 17,000 meals which is enough to feed 47 children for an entire year.  Those numbers always have a big impact on me, because I know how often they pack food every week, and how many meals are going out.  It seems like an impossibly large number, but it still barely addresses the need.  I am both filled with wonder that so much is being done and heart sick to know how badly it is needed.  It was clear that Allie was moved by the numbers as well.

She told us that she had a good time, and asked when we could do it again, which was, of course, our goal in bringing her.  I hope that we have started a habit which will last a long time with her.  She and Jen posed for one last picture before we left...


If you would like to learn more about FMSC, go to Feed My Starving Children.