What an exhausting and exhilarating day!! Maybe that sounds like a contradictive description, but hopefully I can help you to understand with this entry!
Once again, ASB New York boarded the subway, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready for an exciting day! Not too long after, we arrived at the door step of God’s Love We Deliver.
We were given an amazingly welcoming introduction to the facility and the daily runnings of the organization. Before we boarded the elevator down to the kitchens, we donned lovely lunch lady-esk hair nets. After a very short look around, we were instructed to pull up our sleeves, sanitize up to our elbows and put on an apron to top off the outfit. It was hard not to be immediately infected by the amazing energy pulsing through the kitchen, and we were all ready and excited!
Right away we were thrown in to the pack of the “regular” Tuesday group helping in the mass production of a warm and healthy beef stew. Some of us were instructed to spread the beef out on massive cooking sheets, while others started off peeling and chopping 150 pounds of carrots!! Needless to say, we got our hands dirty quick!
The kitchen staff did an amazing job of mobilizing the huge task force that was both our group and those that were normal attendees. As soon as one job was done, we were already being briefed and moved to our next one. At one point, almost the whole kitchen was dedicated to chopping up onions. Soon enough all the airspace was filled with the relentless juice of onions, making all of us tear up for quite some time. But of course! ASB NYC made it through to lunch!
We were provided lunch by God’s Love, so we got the chance to experience the meals that get delivered to the terminally ill every day. Each meal is specifically catered to the illness of each client, and we were all incredibly surprised at how tasty they were! It was great to know that we were huge contributors to this amazing project!
After lunch, we started shift two with a new set of volunteers and a new kitchen staff. Our first monumental task was wrapping over 1600 rolls! That is when we were able to get a real feel for exactly how many people we were impacting with our service. We also took part in a kitchen wide mushroom and potato chop, as well as mixing salads, unloading the huge cookers of beef, and draining industrial sized cans of olives! Never for a moment were we tired or bored, because there was never a moment of stillness!!
Now hopefully you understand what I mean by exhausting and exhilarating. :)
With only a few blisters and a minor cut to the finger, we left God’s Love full of joy!! We are excited to return tomorrow, when half of us will go to deliver the 3000!!!! meals, and the rest will continue with our adventures in the kitchen!
Peace Be.
ASB NYC