Bountiful Baskets a day of volunteering, Great fun but woke up sore.

Lady and I set out on our adventure.  She had gotten baskets before but this was my first one, I also ordered 2 lugs of apples.  We arrived early and the truck was already there.  We got out and started helping carry cases of food.  There were two men and one lady there with us.  We each took a case and carried it in, we put the boxes where we would the coordinator had not yet arrived.  The time quickly passed and before the pallets were all unloaded more people came along and helped with the unloading.  Just as the last pallet was empty the coordinator arrived and said "no, one called me".  I guess, as a rule, she gets a heads up when the truck leaves the last, or an earlier drop site, no call this time.  She got to organizing where the boxed actually had to be and put up tags where they needed to be relocated them to.  Lady and I spoke to her to let her know that we were there to learn so that we could bring Bountiful Baskets to our little town.  She was happy to have us and right away started letting us know what we would needed to learn, asked if we had done some of the preliminary things we would have to do to get a site.  And let us know that even if we did all of it we would have to be okayed to even get a site.  We were eager to learn and hoping to get all the steps done so we could have a site in our community. 

The coordinator started us down the basket line.  Everyone took up a basket and went to each of the fruit or veggie stations and put the given amount of fruit or vegetable in the baskets.  Some were one or two, others were four, five or seven.  Basket filled it was put into a grid and you got a new basket and started all over.  We filled 87 baskets of food.  There were extras, like strawberries, apples, breads that were ordered to be picked up with the baskets.  There were also addition prefilled boxes of lunch box fruit or organic baskets for other orders.  Once the food was distributed, we reboxed the baskets into boxes for easy pick up, we didn't have enough boxes and some of the people that came to pick up had their own with them so we filled their baskets or boxes.  The baskets have to be picked up by a certain time or by the rules they will be donated to the local fire department, no other place is allowed.  We will have to talk to the local fire station to work that out, maybe he can donate it to the food bank or he may have a need in mind, we will see.  We will also have to get a place to do the drop off and the sorting but that is all something we will get worked out as we get farther down the road to what we have to do.

The people we worked with were great, all had different things to give to the process.  It was a great community activity and it was nice to see a well oiled machine in work.  We were told we could go to the other drop offs to see how others did it but Lady and I both thought that they did such a good job and had such a smooth operation that it may be better to see one working example, use it and work out our own kinks rather than trying to combine many different not necessarily workable ideas together.  We both truly enjoyed our time and volunteering, oh and we got the greatest fruits and veggies for our families.  Lady was sure we would be sore from the lifting, I didn't think that the sore would be from the lifting for me.  I was right and I am sure she was too.  I have no sore from the lifting but the carrying has made my hips sore this morning, back and shoulders great.  I am built like a dump truck so unlike tall people like Poppy and Lady, I get sore differently. 

We ended up with a true passion to bring Bountiful Baskets to our community and a fire to get it done.  I know that both of us have had people tell us that they are interested in participating in the site if we get one here, can't wait to see if we can get one and get it all up and running.  What a blessing that that would be for our little community and think of all the good food and veggies and maybe in the long run it would add to the farmer's market in the summer time.  Bountiful basketers would already be down town so they might just as well stop there too.  I think this will be so good for our little community.  God blesses those who asked for blessings, this will truly be a blessing.... tomorrow.