Pre-trip service!

Today, 9 members of the team went to Capitol Area Food Bank in D.C. to do some pre-trip service.

We met at the College Park Metro station, only to discover some track work was taking place around our intended Metro stop, and Metro was only running buses through the area. So, since it wasn't that far, we decided to drive.

We got there about 15 minutes early and everyone was pretty comatose at that point. We chilled inside with an energy level of about 0 and waited for the Food Bank to be ready for us. Once they were, machinery master David showed us the ropes. There were probably about 40 volunteers there in total, and we were in charge of filling bags for low-income elderly. As David pointed out, "when you're 300 years old you're not trying to work." A very astute observation indeed. We were glad to be able to help these elderly folks.

We set up an assembly line where one person was in charge of each food group and everyone else walked down the line with an open bag, collecting food items. There were also some people in charge of double-bagging bags, some tying the filled food bags, and some running around being Scissor Masters, opening boxes and collecting/crushing empty ones like ninjas. When Meenu took a turn doing this, she couldn't resist singing "you didn't have to cut me out," in typical Meenu fashion -- her brain literally thinks in puns. Some people switched jobs occasionally, and we continued working like this for a little over two hours. Personally I spent the first half bagging and the second half passing out cans of tuna. Tuna on tuna on tuna. Definitely never seen so much tuna in my life. At the end, we were able to fill over 2,000 bags!! We also finished almost an hour early.

When we had the occasional break we were dodging out of the way as David whipped by on the big machinery that moved the crates (no idea what those things are actually called - small forklifts??). If driving those things were a sport, David would probably be in the Olympics. There was definitely no speed limit in there, and he was also doing tricks on it. It's great that he was having fun, though, and enjoys his work while he's helping others. Another thing we enjoyed doing was observing the very entertaining sorority girls that were volunteering with us. They were seen modeling with bags of kidney beans and posing with cans, and overhearing their conversations was endlessly entertaining.

Though the work was repetitive, it was definitely fun! Doing something repetitive has a sort of soothing quality to it, especially in contrast to the major brain power required of us on a day-to-day basis in class. And of course, it felt good to be helping people.

The amount that we were able to get done in just over 2 hours makes me very excited for what we will be able to accomplish in a week in Chicago.

Current countdown = 14 days!! Go AB Chi-town!!

**pictures to come-- Meenu!**