Overall I feel that my workshop was a complete success.  Two things that went very well were that the kids loved it and had a great time learning about hunger, and that the pretzels cooled fast enough so that everybody was always working and not just sitting around.  I really enjoyed being a teacher for two hours, but now feel bad for other teachers, because I felt how hard it was to control younger children.  Even though the children were fussy in the end I managed to settle them down.  In the end it was a great experience being a teacher and I think it taught me a lot about patience.  If I could have changed something in my workshop I think it would have been the power point, I would have taken out the pictures and talked more about our experience.  I think that this would have helped because the students did not really need to see all the pictures, one would have been enough, and sharing more about our experience would help them understand our feelings about the topic.  One of the major things I learned, that will stay with me forever, is that hunger has no disguise.  This will stay with me because it was something that I really noticed when I was on my visits at the Food Bank For New York, it was very disturbing to see that people with one or even two jobs still needed help buying necessities like food.

I feel that I did not do much in my set up group,which was deciding which groups would be in what room and what teacher would be supervising, because my group mates would not let me.  When they did not let me I worked around it and helped in a different set up group, which was deciding what group each kid was going in to.  I liked the process that led up to the teach-in, but one thing that could have been different is that one teacher was assigned to each group and would help them plan all the visits out and maybe even go on the visits with them.  Overall I loved the teach-in and wish I could do it all over next year, it also was incredibly fun and I will never forget it.

Today I went to the Food Bank, but unlike any of my other trips to the Food Bank today I got to work in the kitchen.  When I arrived I had to get suited up I put on a hair netting, a plastic apron, and some plastic gloves.  Once I was dressed and ready for action I was taken into the kitchen and was briefed on what I was going to do.  My job was to take bowls with two cookies in them and to put it on a tray which contained juice, a piece of bread, rice, vegetables, and salmon (which was the days special).  When I started my job I was greeted by Some collage girls from South Carolina that were visiting New York to do community service.  Once the doors opened, the place suddenly became full of people waiting for food.  Once the first wave of people came through my arms hurt like crazy but I could do nothing about it.  Today I really got a feel for the working poor because there were a lot of people that came that looked fine, but this does not mean that they don’t need help purchasing food.  Some facts that I learned when I was at the Food Bank is that they feed about 675 people every day serving hot food.  Overall I had a really fun time serving food and some of the people who were getting food were really grateful.

This is me, my dad, and Nate, who runs this section of the Food Bank

Today I went to the Food Bank’s head quarters.  When I arrived I was told to sign in and then sit down.  After waiting for about 5 minutes Heather Joseph came out and greeted me (this was the first time we met.)  As we walked to her office i said good bye to the lady at the front desk whom I had been chatting with.  When we got to her office which was down a long hall  we both sat down and I briefed he on what the school project was.  When that was over I asked if I could record the interview, which she said yes to, then I started asking my questions.  My questions were “when did the Food Bank start?  Answer it started in 1983 as Food for Survival then in the late 1980’s it became Food Bank of New York.  What is the difference in how many meals you have served between then and now?   Answer we have served more because as a company we have grown in our size and the amount of people we can serve also last year we served about  35 million pounds of food and this year we have served about 50 million pounds.What are the different things that the Food Bank does?  Answer the food bank has many different programs including tax aid teaching kids how to eat and cook healthy and there main program is food distribution…  When the interview was over we said are good byes and I later used the information to help me write my investigative journalism paper.  The information that I got in the interview with Heather Joseph was amazing and disturbing, it was amazing to see how much they helped and distubing to hear about how many people are hungry in New York City.

Today I went to the Food Bank pantry.  Unlike my other visit at the pantry this time the grocery store was still open, because on Wednesdays the grocery store is open till 6 P.M. instead of closing at 3 P.M. on weekdays.  Today my job was to restock all of the cans and the fresh fruit supply.  I stocked everything from apples to canned goods to ground beef and all the way to dried clams in a bag.  During the periods of time that I was restocking I was given the chance to help many people find what they needed, even one time I got to use my Spanish skills and help somebody looking for canned corn (which in Spanish is maiz).  Today at the pantry/grocery store 81 people came in and bought produce, this was a low number I was told because in the beginning of the month less people come and at the end of the month it gets mobbed.  Overall I had a great time serving people and hope to do it again soon.  If you want to learn more about the Food Bank you can look at there website at http://www.foodbanknyc.org/

Today Logan and I, went to the Father’s Heart Ministry.  When we arrived we were immediately told to hang up our jackets and form a chain with everybody there to bring all of the pre made bags of canned goods(there were about 5-6 hundred).  Once the top floor was filled we started storing them on the ground floor.  Once all the bags were stored we helped set up the tables in the dining room, there were about 100 seats.  When that was completed the head lady Carly got up on stage and made a speech about what we were doing, some things that she said was the people who came where our guests and we had to treat them that way.  When she was done with the speech she then handed out our assignments, Logan and I got pantry.  In pantry you had to bring bags down from the top floor, so Logan and I were running up and down the stairs with 5 pound bags.  The Father’s Heart ministry is only open on Saturday for breakfast from 10-11 and is all you can eat.  By the end of the hour by myself i had probably brought down 250 bags and had broken a sweat and the Father’s Heart Ministry had served 555 people.  If you want to learn more about the Father’s Heart Ministry there website is http://www.fathersheartnyc.org/.  Here are some photos that I took.

This is me in front of one of the humongous stacks of bags

This is a large stack of bags

Today Logan and I went to the Food Bank of New York’s food pantry.  This is like a soup kitchen at night because they make hot food and give it away for free, but it also serves as a pantry, which is like a grocery store where they give food away to those in need.  Our job was to restock all the shelves of food that people had taken today.  We restocked everything from fruits and vegetables, to canned goods, to whole frozen chickens. We learned that about 150 people come everyday.  We also learned that people get their food based on a point system: the larger the family you have, the more points you get, and each object costs a certain number of points. For example, a whole 3 pound chicken costs 6 points, and a can of vegetables costs 2 points.  This pantry receives its food from a large warehouse that is also owned by the food bank, but also distributes food to other soup kitchens and pantries.  Although we did not participate in handing out food at the pantry (because it closes at 3:30 on Tuesdays), we still helped out a lot and got a great feeling knowing that we helped out in the community.

Here are some pictures that I took at the pantry!

This is me at the food pantry.

This is a picture of Goya cans that I stacked.

These are 3-pound whole chickens that Logan stacked in the freezer.

This is me stacking orange juice.

This is one of the many storage rooms that contains boxes of canned goods.

This is me stacking canned pineapples.

Our last task: to put three fresh oranges in a bag and tie them up for distribution.