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Wednesday Morning, May 29

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Last week I invited our great grandson Anthony to go along with me to Blessings of Hope. He was excited to volunteer and do whatever job we had to do. He turned ten years old in early May, so he is eligible to volunteer.

Cerwin could not go last week because he took his brother out for breakfast. He does that about once a month. Elvin has macular degeneration and no longer drives. They enjoy breakfast with a variety of friends who show up at Gus’s Keystone Family Restaurant in Mount Joy.

Anthony and I arrived a bit early for our shift, so we had a choice of sorting jobs. We chose cherry tomatoes. Others were sorting strawberries, Brussels sprouts and peppers.

Our job was to look through each pack of donated tomatoes and remove any bad ones. The bucket on the left held the bad ones. When a pack of good ones was full, it was placed in a cardboard tray. When the bucket of bad tomatoes got about half full, Anthony dumped it into a trash bin. He placed the empty packs (center) in another trash bin.

When the tray was full of good tomatoes, it was placed on a conveyer belt which took it to a worker in another part of the building where it was placed in the correct place for distribution.

When we finished a tray, Anthony went to a nearby skid and picked up another tray for us to sort. As you can see, we must wear hairnets and gloves. (Notice the lady sitting on a stool. I will tell you about the stools later.)

Our shift was from 8:30 am until 11:00 am.

About 10:45 as the three “tomato” tables were finishing up the two skids of tomatoes, we were told to finish the tomatoes on our table, then clean the table and area around us. There were two others at our table – a home nurse and handicapped young man she cared for. They come twice a week. She took their colander (which they used for sorting) to be washed, he washed the table with a cleanser, I swept the floor and Anthony washed the bucket that held the bad tomatoes. That way each table was ready for the next shift.

There are generally three shifts at the Leola Warehouse per day: 8:30 am to 11:00 am, 12:30 pm to 3:00 pm and 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm – plus a variety of flex shifts for maintenance and truck washing. A Saturday morning shift is also offered.

Anthony is excited to go along with me again this week.

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I was thinking about why we only began volunteering for Blessings of Hope during the past few months.

Then as I thought about the past two years since I retired from Transport For Christ, I was reminded that I spent most of 2022 working on articles and information for our church’s 250th Anniversary in August. I was asked to do that about the time I retired.

Last year I spent a lot of time working on our church’s 2023 Yearbook and 2023 Photo Directory. Now I know why I didn’t think about volunteering before. 🙂

Also, we only became acquainted with the opportunities at Blessings of Hope when our friends John and Arlene gave us a voucher for shopping in the Lancaster Blessings of Hope Store for our 60th Wedding Anniversary last September.

The opportunity to receive these vouchers piqued our interest and we eventually signed up as volunteers. Each person receives a voucher at the end of their shift, giving them the opportunity to shop at the Lancaster grocery store where you pay for items by weight. I think it is about 62 cents a pound. We enjoy shopping there about once a month and also giving vouchers to family members.

There are also volunteer opportunities at the Lancaster Store where trucks deliver donated groceries and dry goods. I expect some of our tomatoes went there. In an effort to find our place at Blessings, we also volunteered at the East Petersburg Warehouse where dehydration happens. We have about the same driving distance to the East Petersburg and Leola warehouses.

We enjoyed going to East Petersburg and seeing how dehydration works. Because we were new, we were given a tour of the plant and learned how dehydrated items are shipped around the world, especially to refugees and places where tornados and floods have recently happened. They work with other ministries (like the Barnabas Project) who distribute the dehydrated items – especially a nutritional soup that is made with these items.

We settled in on going to Leola, because chairs and stools are available. They are not available at East Petersburg. We both find it difficult to stand for two-and-a-half hours. I guess that happens to people in their ’80s. 🙂

Thanks, John and Arlene for unknowingly giving us a nudge to get involved.

You can read about Blessings of Hope at this link. Home – Blessings of Hope