Day of Service

Last Saturday my whole day was devoted to serving others.

At 8 a.m., Alex, Nate, and I showed up at the church for the big "Mormon Helping Hands service project.  There were SO MANY members of our stake there in the parking lot putting on the yellow vests and t-shirts while waiting for their assignments.  They split us into at least ten different assignments to serve in various places in the community.  Some went to help at schools, other went and did some service for Habitat for Humanity.  I don't know where else we were used, but I know we did a lot for a lot of good folks.

Our group consisted of us, Alysa and Carson Whitlock, Polo and Sierra Doria, Ron and Ronnie Cox, the Bruners, the Broadheads and two sons, the Prestons, the Johnstons, and Bro. Jackson.  Who am I forgetting?  Anyways, it was a great group with a lot of youth.

Here is a picture of Nate, Carson, and Alex, ready to start working.  My boys were so excited.  They LOVE serving others and doing stuff like this.  All week before they kept saying, "Can't wait 'til Saturday when our Hands are gonna be Helping!"  and "These hands are my Mormom Helping Hands."  Cute boys.
Our assignment was at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission in Indio.  We had no idea what the work would involve, but we did know that the Mission had very recently had a devastating fire that had destroyed most of the mission.  It was very sad, and my boys had been very concerned for these folks since they heard about the fire when it happened and have been anxious to do something for them.  They were so happy to happen to get the chance to go help there.  What we found there was that everything had been fixed up and rebuilt.  It all looked very nice, and everything was new and freshly painted.  Obviously, other folks with helping hands had been there before us.  The only evidence of the fire was this telephone pole just a few feet from the new building where we were to work.  It was sobering to look at.

They explained to us that our job was to organize the huge garage-sized food storage building.  It had  been recently built, and industrial shelves put up.  But the food donations had been so fast and generous, that the people there couldn't get it organized before it was just packed with food donations.  As a result, the place was a huge mess, and nobody could find anything in there.  Additionally, the industrial shelving had metal grate shelves with large openings that cans were not stable on, and would often fall through- making stacking cans almost impossible.  They asked us to remove everything, line the shelves with cardboard, then put all the food back in a nice, organized manner.  That was a BIG pantry, and the task seemed daunting, even with so many of us.

Everyone got started right away loading cans into crates and lugging them outside.

Here is Nate helping in the back of the big truck that they were using as a staging area.

Alex was working with me in the same aisle.  Here is is sorting through a big pile of various food boxes.

I am so proud to work along side my wonderful, hardworking kid.

As I was organizing the PB and J, I'd catch glimpses of Polo over in the other aisle doing his thing.
Alysa, Nonie, and Ronni worked in our aisle as well.  Everyone just got going and  worked so hard.
Here we are with our helping hands!  We worked non-stop from about 8:30 to 12:30!  It was heavy, back breaking work!  We would designate one shelf for cereal, clear that shelf of everything on it, then go hunt everywhere for every random box of cereal, then find that one shelf wasn't enough, then have to clear a few more shelves near by for the rest of the cereal, then move on to the pancake mix, etc.  We kept having to shuffle the shelves around.  Then when we got the stuff on the shelves all organized, we started opening the stacks of boxes of food that were on the floor, and we had to find room for all of it, shuffling and reshuffling the shelves.

Someone would call out  "I got some yams here.  Anybody doing yams?"  "Yep, over here.  You want this barbecue sauce?"  "Over here!" "Where do matzo balls go?" "I can put them here by the crackers"  "Last call for cereal!"  ""Do you have room for a few gallons of black pepper over there?" "Oh great, another whole box of condiments!" and etc.  It was really crazy, but it was amazing how we didn't need to make a plan or organize our efforts.  Yet, it was all prety efficient. We all just picked a spot and started working.  And when one of us would finish one shelf, we'd just move on to the next.  When we needed cardboard, we just called for one, and it was cut and ready.  Nobody stopped.  Nobody just sat.  We just worked.  It was great fun!

Another amazing thing was that at least a third of the food there had come from the church.  So many boxes and bags were marked "Not for resale.  Salt Lake City, UT."  Later, Mom told me that the Church had sent the mission 2 huge truckloads of food and supplies, even mattresses, when they heard the mission had had a fire.  I was so impressed and grateful to belong to that church.  It reaffirmed my testimony that the LDS church really is Jesus Christ's own church.  So if we had to work so hard to organize so much food, it was really our own fault.  No wonder they invited us to come organize all that food - we gave it to them!

When we were done, everything looked great.  It was very satisfying!  The task had been so daunting!  I thought of my tiny pantry at home, that has been needing to be cleaned out for a long time.  I had put it off for so long because I thought that task was overwhelming.  After this huge project, my pantry seems like a piece of cake, (if only I had a team of 20 volunteers to help me!)

 

The results were pretty amazing, though I didn't quite capture the difference in this picture. When we were done everything was in its place and the aisles we clear - no boxes!

We were exhausted!  I took my boys out to lunch at our favorite local Mexican place.  It tasted so good to me, but I was so tired, and I still had to go work at the LDS prom way over in Highland in a few hours.  I told my boys I was too tired, and just wouldn't go to the dance.  They told me I needed to go, and I told them I knew that, but I had to tell myself that I wasn't going, because it made me feel better.

A few hours later Dennis and I were all dressed up and driving over an hour away to the dance.

It was pretty spectacular - a New York theme complete with lighted skylines, street signs, taxis, traffic lights, the Brooklyn Bridge spanning the entire stage, and even a Statue of Liberty right in the middle of the dance floor!

There were a lot of leaders there to cook and serve the dinner.  It was a madhouse behind the scenes.  My job was server, and of course, I had those tables in the furthest corner of the cultural from the kitchen, and I was in heels.  It was a lot of work!

But the folks in the kitchen worked even harder!  Dad had been there since morning cooking on Bro. Fox's crew.  There was so much hustle and bustle and bodies in that kitchen.  It was really insane!

Dennis did double duty helping in the kitchen, then bringing out trays of food for me to deliver to the tables.

When the dinner portion of the evening was all done, we got a chance to eat ourselves before hitting the road home again.  We got home around 10 pm, and I was completely wiped out!

What a day of service!  We all really had a good time, though, and I am so glad we all had the opportunity to participate.