By Beth Ladrie, Sr. Human Resources Representative
The food drive we run here at DAVIS is such a worthy event, but is also quite a bit of work. From collecting everything, to constantly reminding everyone to donate and ultimately transporting, I found myself thinking, “Do I really want to run this again???”
The following is a sequence of my thoughts as we wrapped up the final day of our food drive last week…
Delivery Day:
There are so many donations from our employees! How are we going to get all of this into the cars? Do we have enough boxes? Who can I bother to help? Wait, what do you know… a handful of employees are right there without hesitation, immediately grabbing bags and boxes, bringing them all downstairs and loading them into the cars. And they are all smiling! Hmmm this might not be so bad…
Arrival at the Food Pantry:
It is SOOO cold and ridiculously windy, UGH! Well look at this, volunteers already coming out to help us! With our shopping carts we had to make multiple trips to get the job done, but it’s going pretty quickly with the help. Every time we bring a cart of donations in, the volunteers immediately help by emptying the carts. This is going very smoothly, this is not so bad. When all the donations are finally in, we step back to see all the supplies and the reaction from the volunteers it is priceless. We were thanked and hugged many times for all the food and products. As the volunteers are weighing everything (660 pounds!) they are almost giddy as they point out the 100’s of Bic razors, toiletries and all the items that are often overlooked as a donation. After being thanked for what seemed like the 100th time I had to stop and thank THEM for all they do every day to make the food pantry run so successfully. Their enthusiasm is so genuine, their appreciation is so sincere…this feels really, really good!
Heading Back to Work:
Driving away from a job well done I was truly happy. It’s the kind of happy that you can only get when you do something for others without anything in it for you. It’s the happy that comes from being able to help people going through a difficult time. It’s the happy that comes from community service.
As happy as I was I couldn’t help but feel bad that everyone didn’t get to experience the best part of the event, the delivery. The kindness and appreciation from the volunteers as well as the appreciative look from the customers shopping for their needed supplies filled my heart. The generosity of DAVIS employees donating supplies as well as making sure it all got packed up and loaded into the vehicles was extraordinary.
So do I really want to run a food drive again? Without a doubt, yes I do… but only if I can help deliver.
