Project 'Food Bank'

Hello there!

It's my first proper post about my first proper volunteering, so it's kind of big, isn't it? Well, it was a project 'Food Bank' on 19th October. It was organized to help those families who have lost their relatives and now are struggling to provide themselves. This year, the highest amount of money was collected - one million litas! Thus, it was really nice to be a part of such a special project!

Me and my class were put forward to join this project by our CAS coordinator. We met the organizer of this program about a week before an actual event and he introduced us to 'Food Bank' itself and to this particular project.  He explained that volunteers of this event would have to distribute flyers at the shops encouraging people to buy products for families of this project or to collect those products from donating people marking everything on given document and, of course, to thank people for their generosity. It all seemed very interesting and a bit challenging, so me and a bunch of my classmates volunteered at this project.

We met our coordinator on Saturday, she explained us how all this worked and we started! I had a chance to try out both responsibilities, but I preferred collecting products from donating people rather than giving out flyers. I don't mean that it was a bad job. It was interesting and really challenging, because even though some people were positive about these kinds of projects, others had low opinion about people distributing flyers, so they just walked away without looking at us or even said something not very nice thinking that it was only commercial and not actual help for people. On the other hand, I got an experience and understanding how all that worked and learned that preconceived opinion can be wrong. I found out how to be convincing, encourage people to donate, without being pushy. I also really enjoyed collecting food and being able to see how generous people are and to thank them personally. It really made me understand that there are many kind people who think about others and gave me an incentive to contribute some products myself.

Overall, volunteering in this 'Food Bank' project included one CAS aspect - Service.