On Monday, March 31, 2008, Luis Hinojosa, Michelle Roman, Kim Mai Nguyen, Adriana Garcia, and Cynthia Hsu spent the day packaging, preparing, and serving food!! What better way to spend a day- working with food! We started the day at Second Harvest Food Bank where we packaged two huge bottomless bins of carrots. While packaging bags of carrots to be distributed to individuals and various soup kitchens and organizations, we laughed over stories of Adriana and Cynthia as childhood bullies and befriended our fellow carrot packers. The time passed quickly and the next thing we knew it was time to head over to Loaves and Fishes, a soup kitchen operated out of St. Patrick’s School in San Jose.
When we arrived the kitchen was full of staff and volunteers busily preparing the meals to be served to the 200+ eager diners who would arrive later in the afternoon. A couple of us were assigned to fruit salad preparation while others were responsible for setting up the dining hall. Many of the volunteers were regulars and were eager to get to know us newcomers. Shortly before 4:00pm, we saw the crowds outside just waiting for meal service. There was an interesting and colorful mix of diners that afternoon- singles, couples, and families of all different backgrounds. The diners seemed to be more than satisfied with their meals and many of them came back for seconds and even thirds- especially for the cookies!! While serving meals, the aroma from the food, particularly the chicken noodle soup, stimulated our appetites, and after cleaning up, we decided to grab dinner together at the vegetarian restaurant across the way- a perfect way to end the day!
When we arrived the kitchen was full of staff and volunteers busily preparing the meals to be served to the 200+ eager diners who would arrive later in the afternoon. A couple of us were assigned to fruit salad preparation while others were responsible for setting up the dining hall. Many of the volunteers were regulars and were eager to get to know us newcomers. Shortly before 4:00pm, we saw the crowds outside just waiting for meal service. There was an interesting and colorful mix of diners that afternoon- singles, couples, and families of all different backgrounds. The diners seemed to be more than satisfied with their meals and many of them came back for seconds and even thirds- especially for the cookies!! While serving meals, the aroma from the food, particularly the chicken noodle soup, stimulated our appetites, and after cleaning up, we decided to grab dinner together at the vegetarian restaurant across the way- a perfect way to end the day!
By: Cynthia Hsu
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