An Apple a Day Keeps Hunger Away

Last week was National Volunteer Week. In light of this, and the fact that the foundation gives employees paid "service days" to spend volunteering, I joined a few of my coworkers last Tuesday to volunteer for a United Way project at the Greater Chicago Food Depository.

During our orientation period, the project coordinator told us that the hunger rate is so high, they serve the equivalent of one in every eight people in Cook County. I looked around at my coworkers--there were nine of us--and I said "that's one of us." It's really a scary thought to think there are that many people starving in this county. Needless to say, now whenever I think I'm starving because of this diet, I remind myself that it's a self-imposed diet and not a case in which I just have no means to eat.

In the three hours we were there, we packed 21,000 pounds of apples into boxes that will be distributed to families and food banks across the city. While we packed, I kept repeating the phrase "How do you like them apples?" about every 20 minutes and am pretty sure I won't be able to eat a red apple for at least a few months after spending so much time with them on Tuesday. As we packed the apples into empty banana boxes for easy transport, we found some leftover banana stragglers. By the time we were done we collected nearly an entire box full of them! That's me trying to lift it... it was heavy! I wonder what they did with all those bananas....