Day 1: Hi Houston

 Monday 08 2023

Today was the first day of my volunteer journey, but I was not yet familiarized with the city of Houston and underestimated the traffic in Houston as there are only highways in Houston. I barely got to the food bank in time for my 8:00 AM shift which was an assembly line where we organized cereal and canned goods for children from K to 12. I was worried at first as there were so many new faces but here at the Houston food bank they did a 30-minute icebreaker at the beginning of each day which really warmed me up to the people in my environment. It was a diverse group of volunteers so my first 4-hour shift of repetitive assembly of the bag of goodies, we vibed out to good music. In the middle of my shifts we would have a karaoke session or a dance session and the atmosphere was popping. There was never a dull moment in a rather dull task. Afterwards, I moved to my second shift in the afternoon at 1:00 PM where I was working in the assembly line in the kitchen where hot food was laid out and individuals are responsible for each component of the food we sent out to places like the YMCA’s. Even when the atmosphere was hot and intense, we hopped our heads to good music and everyone was so friendly sharing their cultural experiences with everyone around them. In the span of 4 hours, we were able to prepare 2400 hot meals. At the end of the day, I met Egypt and Eliza who were sisters volunteering at the shelter that kindly took me home as they saw how expensive an Uber home was for me. I can’t wait to meet more cool people like I did today. Overall I spent 8 hours working 2 shifts, once from 8-12PM working in an assembly line of bagged goodies, then an afternoon shift from 1-5PM working on the hot food assembly line in the kitchen.

Hours today: 8 hours

Hours total: 8 hours

Scenes at the kitchen

Assembly Line!

Our Result!