Update June 2012: Volunteering at the Willow Creek Care Center
Posted: June 9, 2012 Filed under: Volunteering at a Food Pantry | Tags: 2012, Celebration, Chick-fil-A, Parking lot, South Barrington IL, Volunteering, Willow Creek Leave a comment
Fellow Willow Creek volunteers and their families. Chatting and listening to the band.
Willow Creek held an event at the Church parking lot yesterday. As a “Thank You” event for the volunteers, general announcements and a (large) group photo session.
Serving teams from the various days gathered together at the tables or stood around and chatted before the speakers took to the stage.They announced the launch of a new website for the Care Center. There was a live band on stage, and we ate a Chick-fil-A meal. A (tasty) Regular Chicken sandwich, Chick-fil-A dipping sauce, a bag of classic Lays potato chips and a very yummy cookie.
My Willow Creek Care Center volunteer t-shirt & letter group reminder
The above is a picture of the Volunteer T-shirt I received during the event along with the letter formation note for the photo. The event ended with some dancing and the team leaders getting recognition onstage. I had a fine time there.
Update from my time at the Food Pantry (3-1-2012)
Posted: March 1, 2012 Filed under: Volunteering at a Food Pantry | Tags: Food Pantry, Hoffman Estates IL, Volunteering, Willow Creek Leave a commentIt’s been a while since I posted something about my experiences at the Willow Creek Care Center/Food Pantry. Things are still going well, helping families, seeing random food products. These past 2 Sundays, I’ve been helping out more in the bread room, keeping shelves stocked, locating more items, pushing bread carts and the like. I’ve been given more important responsibilities. I also get the honor of turning on all the lights in the public areas of the care Center, while my supervisors open doors, and greet waiting guests.
A donation that was left outside the doors of the FP
The above donation was full of oatmeal, grapes, yogurt and apple slices.
A donation that I sorted through. Crackers and cookies.
The two boxes seen above above as full of crakers, Snack well cookies.
Lucky for us, it’s usually still quite chilly outside, so that helps to preserve the freshness of these donated goods, I don’t know how some of these items would hold up during the Spring and Summer seasons.
The “higher-ups” have made an effort to visit the Sunday team more often than before.
Some of my team members have shown me a great deal of kindness and generosity on multiple occasions. I continue to learn a lot, but there’s still so much that I need to know about in the different sections to be more effective. Communicating with ESL (English as a Second Language) volunteers is something I still need to improve
Volunteering at the Food Pantry: Turkey time 2011
Posted: November 21, 2011 Filed under: Volunteering at a Food Pantry | Tags: Food Pantry, Hoffman Estates IL, Volunteering, Willow Creek Leave a commentIn addition to the usual items that clients get for their monthly visits, Turkeys and a box of side dishes are also included. This will allow the families to enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Sunday team also broke its previous record of most people served, yesterday. The old record was 184, the new record is 208.
The boxes of sides were packed by the Willow Creek community.
Unfortunately my low quality camera phone can’t really capture the detail of the designs and well wishes on the boxes all that well. There were 4 pallets of these boxes. I found it to be quite a sight to see.
I was quite busy myself, sorting through donated goods, operating the (cardboard) compactor. Helping fellow volunteers locate goods, and fill special requests/needs. Since this was my first time serving during the Thanksgiving season, I can only imagine how much busier things could get.
Changes and retraining
Posted: October 14, 2011 Filed under: Volunteering at a Food Pantry | Tags: Food Pantry, Hoffman Estates IL, retraining, update, Volunteering, Willow Creek Leave a commentIt’s been quite a while since my last post about the Willow Creek Food Pantry. Things are going well there. Weekends are actually getting busier since my previous entry. Sunday team serves 100+ families regularly, and the team leader let us know (from his experience) that it will only get busier.
There’s always something a little different going on with this Food pantry, a slight change in the placement of goods in the warehouse, what bags we use, to what goes into the bags. We get new volunteers while others take a little break.
One of the new things I’ve learned while here, is how to confidently load and operate a Compactor. It’s used to flatten large amounts of reusable cardboard, which gets recycled. My ability to process empty cardboard material (boxes and trays the food stuff is shipped in) has improved quite a bit. I continually assist in training new volunteers. I’ve even taken steps to recycle more stuff while at home.
Next week all volunteers will be going through a retraining session. Since I primarily deal with the Food part of the center perhaps I will be able to learn more about the other areas, and processes that I have had less exposure to. Not too sure. I’ve never met any of the weekday volunteers, so perhaps I will get that chance at this event.
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