I am really stoked to be organizing our food drive and volunteer work group this month with the ACCFB (Alameda County Community Food Bank). They are a wonderful institution, and this is a perfect opportunity to shed light on the important work they do. It’s amazing that they service 1 in 6 people in the county, and that many of those, especially during the summer, are children. These are kids who depend on school lunch programs which end during the summer. On top of this, many families’ finances are further strained by the need to also pay for childcare. The ACCFB is focused on getting food and services to those needing a reprieve during tough times. I’m hoping that we can break the previous record we set back in 2011 and collect more than 150 lbs. of food.
I first became aware of the ACCFB from my wife, Katy, who has been taking her 5th grade class there for years, to be a volunteer work group. Katy had great descriptions of their giant warehouse space which has massive amounts of food delicately flowing through an organized chaos. On our first OAP food drive (back in 2011), I decided to pick up the food donation barrels myself so I could see the warehouse with my own eyes. It was, indeed, quite impressive. This, in turn, made me interested in organizing a volunteer work group, so that we could get elbow deep into the process of getting people fed. I’m hoping to gather about 15 people from our OAP community to help sort food on Tuesday morning, July 29th from 8:30 to 11:30 am. Everyone who joins us, gets a free treatment card. It should be a fun morning and a tangible way of giving back to our local community. Even my wife’s 5th grade students have a blast, and they are a notoriously difficult audience to please. Generally, anyone over 10 years old is welcome, so, if you have older kids, it’s a great way to expose them to community service. And, if they don’t want the free treatment card, you can use it for yourself!