I was wrong about the meals for the Haitians project in two ways.
First, Kansas City wasn't adding to a million meals nationwide.
We were assigned to make our OWN million.
Whew, that is a lot. I wonder how much will be done across the country.
Second, it was more than cool to be there.
It was Hoover DAM(n) cool.
I took pictures. I have proof.
You know I like pictures more than words... *sometimes*.
The Boy and I went to the city. I wasn't able to work my four hours, so The Boy and I worked one and half. This was the first bumper sticker we saw when we parked so I knew I was in the right place, with the right people. I have the same one....minus the floating earth. :)
You sign in, get your FREE hair net and apron..,
and we waited just a few minutes in our line
to be assigned to one of the 48 tables.
They need 14 workers per table.
Meaning, in theory, 672 people are filling bags
at the same time. Not including the red-shirted
support staff.
There were a lot of folks smiling.
This is Bob, our table manager. He was so bossy!
But efficient and we got a lot done in our hour.
Don't tell Bob, but after we did an hour on table 46,
we defected to Table 1.
Kind of like figure skaters from Russia in the 80's.
There was an order and funnel to put the ingredients into
the small sandwich sized bags.
First, power vitamins, then dried veggies (that was me)
then dry soy, and dried rice.
Everything is measured to the ounce.
Then The Boy patted the sealed bags flat for packing.
Yeah, he isn't doing too well, hence the large
dark circles under his eyes.
This is what we created. :) One bag feeds six meals.
For the starving may I remind you.
See the veggies...
The words in the right corner say:
Not for sale.
Not for sale.
This food is to be given freely
because Jesus loves little children.
Fortunately, Jesus loves big people too
so they get a box per family with a gallon
of water to make the soup/stew.
This is the magic gong they gonged every
10,000 meals we finished.
It rang 6 times during our shift.
It is a SWEEEET sound.
Honestly, a little sweeter than
the Haitian music they were playing.
I think there was some relief
when the IPOD system broke.
At my table, I stood next to a NBC
tv news personality named Beth.
She was really really nice.
All sorts and sizes were there. Kids whose parents
took them out of school. Old people.
And this cute girl who was working...
from her wheelchair.
Numana is the non-profit food group who helped
make this happen with the Salvation Army.
Last, but certainly not least,
one cancer-surviving
Tom Allison was there.
Normally, I would say that red
is NOT his color....
but for some reason today
(could it be the message?)
it looked Tom Terrific on him. :)
