PDE Community Service 2

 Mobile Food Pantry

The COVID-19 Pandemic has really limited our opportunities to attend in-person community service activities, which is what I hoped to write about. Retrieving in-person public service hours always seem to to be more memorable for me, so I wanted to write a blog post about a Mobile Food Pantry that I volunteered for last November. I know it isn't recent, but it's an event that sticks out to me because it is quite different than the rest of the PDE hours I have accrued in 2021.

I volunteered to help with the Mobile Food Pantry at Lindenwood Christian Church on Union Avenue in November of 2020. It was something that I had never done before. It was a cool morning and even began to sprinkle towards the end of the event. It was, and still is, eye-opening to me how many volunteers (even in the midst of COVID) continuously show up to this event to help those in need in our community. That morning, around 10 of my fellow classmates and I spent approximately 3 hours organizing foods into sections, bagging them, and placing them into vehicles as they slowly passed by. I was unaware how physically demanding this job would be and how quickly we would have to accomplish these steps. In the moment, I didn't realize the impact we were having on others. In the moment, all I could think was, "My fingers hurt and my back hurts," which was incredibly selfish of me, and I realize that now. After the last car drove through the line, we cheered, prayed, gave thanks, and a sense of fulfillment came over me. It was then that I felt blessed and thankful that I could be there to help feed hundreds of families in my community. 

That moment validated my feelings of enjoying helping others, which is one of the main reasons why I wanted to pursue a career in occupational therapy. OT is helping people across the lifespan develop, maintain, or regain the abilities to participate in and perform meaningful daily activities.