Leadership and Volunteerism

Today was by far my favorite Leadership Class of all. This morning we all met at the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. Once there a couple of the men who work there spoke to us a little about the history of that particular food bank, how many people they feed and all about the facility itself. There are about 3 million people living in the state of Oklahoma of that around 500,000 will potentially go hungry on any given day. That number absolutely appalled me. 1 of every 6 people could go without food on a daily basis here?! I just can't imagine. Of those 500,000 a fifth are children. Fortunately because of the regional food bank that number is much lower. "In fiscal year 2006, the Food Bank broke all prior records, distributing more than 24 million pounds of food, a 5% increase over the previous year."
We were then taken on a tour of the facility. They showed us their storage area which includes huge walk in refridgerators kept at 40F and  freezers kept at 10F. The men working in the freezer of course had to wear parkas and gloves. We did walk in for a few seconds, but being in short sleeves I did not stay for long. We then went outside to the garden area. This food bank also grows fresh produce so they can provide people with fresh fruits and vegetables. They also will be starting a new concept this year that will hopefully provide a little extra income. They will be growing fresh herbs waterponically to sell to local restaurants. I am looking forward to returning to check out the "hydroponic" system once it is up and running. They will be using tilapia as a source of food for the plants, through a very cool system which has the geek side of me really geeking out.
After the tour was over we went back inside to listen to a couple of different speakers talk about non-profit charities and how great the need for volunteers is. One of my favorite charities, The Children's Center, was there. The Children's Center provides long term care for children who are medically fragile. Mark Harmon of NCIS is actually a huge supporter of the center and comes out at least once a year for a fundraiser. He will be here on June 9th this year. Once the speakers were through our class went out to lunch. We had great Italian food. yummy
When we returned to the food bank we got to choose between working inside and working outside. Four of us decided to work outside and so we went back out to the greenhouse. Once we got there we were told we'd be planting seeds. So for the next couple of hours we got to play in the dirt. I was quite impressed with the amount of seeds we were able to get planted in the time we were there. We were told that in a week most of what we planted will already be sprouting. I am going to talk to Matt about going back once a month and volunteering to help out in the garden. They will be needing plenty of help with seeding, planting, weeding and harvesting in the coming months.

There is a lot more I could say about this class, but this post is already the longest I've ever written plus I'm getting tired so I think I'll stop here.
I'll probably need to edit this a couple of times. Please excuse any typos till I get the chance to do so.