Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Meals on Wheels Training

Today I went to Meals on Wheels Training during my lunch break, and I am excited about getting started as a volunteer.

It consisted of filling out paperwork, they run a background check (I passed-whew!), we watched a short video with a little background on the program, how it got started, what it consists of. Then we went over sample routes, pick-up locations and what would work well with each of our schedules.

So, my first delivery is Friday, May 2nd. They suggest bringing someone with you the first time, so I'm going to ask my grandfather to go with me. Then after that I will do it once a month, while Keith is home all summer. I think it will be great for Kolbe to join me after I learn the route. They said it takes about 1-2 hours to deliver.

Why do it? Because I can. Driving home today I was thinking about all these people out and about, just driving home from work not even realizing how lucky we are to just be able to hop in the car and get what we need, or ask someone for help if we can't do it ourselves.

It was eye-opening to hear more information today, see all the work and organization that goes into a program like that. They start making meals in Irving at 2:00am for the day (just an hour from now), they will be up making food. They make 7,000 meals every single DAY! 3,000 of those get delivered to residences, the rest go to daycares, shelters and nursing homes. That number is just for the Dallas area. These are people who are well enough to be on their own, but can't get around without help, most don't have help. The trainer said that when you deliver their meal, it will most likely be the only contact they have with anyone that whole day.

Can you imagine?

Think about all the contact we have with each other. Although not all the contact with certain people is the greatest, it is still human interaction.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”-Kahlil Gibran

1 comment:

Nancy said...

What a great thing! :)