On 10/22/2024, Jasmine Zheng & Eddie Leigh went volunteering at FAM food pantry for three hours from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. The supervisor was Jasmine’s dad, Dean Zheng. For the first hour, the two organized egg cartons, checking for broken or expired eggs. They also sorted different crates of food into fridges and threw out expired products. Then, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm, FAM’s clients arrived at the pantry, driving through in their cars. Jasmine’s task was to go around checking clients’ appointment times, case numbers, family sizes and possession of legal documentation. Once all that information was gone over, she also went about taking down their orders on a handheld ipad (for example, what sort of meat they wanted, what sort of dairy products or drink they wanted, whether they desired toiletries, whether they needed cat food or dog food, and whether they needed diapers for their children). The next step was going back into the pantry and putting together carts of all the supplies the clients wanted, then wheeling everything out to pack into clients’ cars. Eddie helped her in three parts of that process; finding the needed resources, weighing the carts, and lifting heavy items off the carts and into the backs of cars. In addition to delivering foodstuffs and other resources to the FAM clients in their cars, Jasmine also handed out bouquets of flowers and bags of wood pellets (for fireplaces and cooking) to them. Once any one client was satisfied and had driven away, Jasmine and Eddie would cross their name off a list of that day’s people with appointments.
Participating members (3 hours each): Jasmine Zheng, Edward Leigh
Reported by Laura Liu