Volunteering for Habitat

This past weekend I dragged myself out of bed at 8 to drive my brother to football practice, quickly came home and threw on jeans and a t-shirt because me and Caitlin were off to volunteer at a local church that was making soup packets to benefit the Habitat For Humanity home. I felt a little off walking into the church because a few years ago I started questioning my religion and dropped out of my Catholic church; but instantly we were taken in and greeted by a group of older people who were extremely energetic and kind. 

A group of sociology students put with an interesting couple and a group of older people made for an amazing and fun three hours. We were working in groups putting packets of noodles together, switching out old instructions for correct ones, re-sealing bags, putting together new bags, and having a great time on a rainy day. 

I started with changing out instructions in some of the bags that had already been made. There were about 8 boxes with 16-20 bags each that needed to be re-opened and replaced with new instructions. For a while it seemed like we were getting no where, but once we got into a rhythm it went by really fast. Then I was asked to put baggies of noodles together to add to the soup packets. I worked with some of the older ladies, listening to their stories and talking to them until we ran short of noodles. Then one of them went out to buy at least 10 more boxes of noodles, while the rest of us put more soup packets together. We filled them with spices, dried vegetables, any noodle baggies we had, an instruction slip, and a Habitat For Humanity card. There were hundreds of packages that needed to be put together, but slowly and surely we got through all of them. Once we got more noodles, we quickly threw together more noodle baggies to fill the packages that needed them. After all of the filling, packaging, and counting the packets we had finally finished.

Somewhere along the way the older people ordered us all pizza, which was incredibly sweet. We all sat down and ate together and talked, which was a nice break after standing on your feet for almost three hours. Before we left the group of older people told us how grateful they were for helping them out and how much fun they had being with us. Before they left they shook our hand or gave us hugs and it was really amazing to see how much we helped them and how appreciative they were of our hard work. If we weren't there, I can't even begin to imagine how long it would have taken to do all of that. 

Later that night Lee mass-texted all of us (she told us how she wants to be "hip" like us and go for texting over email). She thanked us once again for all of our work and how much fun she had with us that day, which made me smile (and her use of "u" for "you" made me laugh). I really had a great time helping them accomplish such a massive task while getting to listen and talk with all of them. It was definitely a great volunteering experience.