On Thursday, 11/15/12 my group and I went to the United Jewish Council of the East Side to serve lunch to elderly who are hungry. Once we got to the organization’s location we met up with Betsy Jacobson and she led us through the rest of the time. We started off by helping the people in charge of the lunch and food pantry services unload boxes and transport them downstairs. That was cool because we got to explore what the people who work there do on a daily basis. After, we went to the lunch rooms and got ready to serve. There were many elderly people in the room. Some looked happy to see their friends, others looked bored or sad, but they all looked hungry. We then put on our aprons, hairnets, and gloves and couldn’t help but laugh at each other. We started by serving everyone appetizers which consisted of apple sauce, a pear, and bread and butter. Once that was done we had to go to each table and take orders for chicken “top or bottom” (white meat or dark meat). Then we went to the counter and got the food and served it to the elders.

It was a fun and interesting experience. Some of the people were nice and others were somewhat rude. There was one woman who seemed a little cranky and kept complaining about things. There was another woman who was very nice and noticed that this was our first time so was helping me with taking people’s orders and other things. One thing I learned about the topic of hunger in NYC is many elder people suffer from hunger; it’s harder for them to deal with this issue because they are so vulnerable and fragile. It is also harder for them to get money for food because they are at the point where they are retired and can not work and can’t make any money to pay for simple life necessities like food. This fieldwork really got me more interested in my topic because seeing people of this old age who can not access food is really sad and is a social injustice. This experience made me want to work harder to try to end hunger in New York City.