Community FoodBank of New Jersey is the states largest anti-hunger and anti-poverty organization. They started more than 40 years ago in downtown Newark and have over 200 employees. On their website they have a place where you can either sign up to volunteer, they accept anyone who wants to spend their time helping or you can donate and that money goes to buying more food and resources to help feed people in New Jersey. The center for leadership and services at Kean University sponsored the event and any student was welcome to participate. Their job is to provide leadership opportunities for development training and community service involvement. They commit themselves to personal development and the safety of every student. The leadership team is also always accepting applications to join them to help out other students. If I weren't graduating in May I would join, I think this is a really great opportunity for students to get involved in extracurriculars and for those students who normaly are not apart of anything. Community service is such a good thing to do and not many people enjoy it or even consider doing it. I didn't do much community service before this but after my experience at the food bank I will be going back on my own time to help with whatever I can.
I put together boxes yesterday to help out, there was another group that was there from a different school, Berkley College who joined the students from Kean and we stood at a table for 2 hours putting boxes together, folding the tops and then stacking them on the floor so the people who worked there could wrap them and put them away to be used. We were given rolls of tape and white stickers to put on top of the labels that were already on the boxes so they could get covered up and used again. I'm not sure what was going to go in the boxes but I'm guessing it is either going to be cans of food or boxes of food.
I've never been to a food bank before or even helped out with community service. It's really unfortunate what some people go through day to day and the fact that they have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from. The food bank was very big so I know they help out millions of people a day. To think some people think they have problems but in reality, those problems are small compared to not being able to eat during the day because some people just can't afford it. I researched the percentage of families and individuals who go without food each day, or who don't know where their next meal is going to be. !3% of people in New Jersey are food insecure, that's 1,141,890 people according to "Facts about Hunger" who do not know where their next meal is going to be. Many of them depend on food pantries and soup kitchens. Me, as a person who doesn't have to worry about where I'm getting my next meal, was happy to help in any way I can even if it was just putting together boxes to put canned food and boxed food in. I will definitely help out again, on my own and see what I can do at a food bank or even soup kitchen. This was a very interesting and insightful project that we had to do as part of our assignment and I'm happy I did.
http://www.cfbnj.org/about-us/
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