“Come follow me through these doors please.”

Our instructor led us to where we would work. My class, wearing our hairnets and aprons, followed him through the double doors and entered a room. It was filled with carts that contained plastic boxes filled with diced pepperoni. Underneath the carts were two boxes containing Ziploc bags.

“This is where you are going to be working for the morning. What you will be doing today is scooping diced pepperoni from these plastic boxes and putting them into these Ziploc bags. Once the bag is full, you will put this Forgotten Harvest sticker on the bag. Finally you will place the bag on this cart and repeat the process.”

We grouped off into groups of threes and fours per cart and started working at once. Students were working as fast and efficiently as possible. We wanted to help Forgotten Harvest feed thousands of people by preparing as many bags of diced pepperoni as possible in the few hours we had. Forgotten Harvest is a charity organization that feeds the poor, and it relies upon volunteer work and donations to keep it running. It was very important that Forgotten Harvest had volunteers; otherwise it wouldn’t be able to help feed those less fortunate than us. I met some people who worked there and found out that they volunteer almost every day. They tried to come and help out every chance that came up. I was amazed by the amount of dedication that they put into volunteering. I think that many people take it for granted that they can simply go out to a grocery store and buy products such as milk and bread to feed their families.

“Okay everyone, we are going to begin cleaning up in a few minutes. Clean your tables and put your boxes into a pile by the sink to be cleaned. Then, start to sweep the floor and meet me outside when you are done.”

Once we finished cleaning up, we went outside to meet our instructor. We soon found out that we made over 3000 pounds worth of diced pepperoni for families to eat in only a couple of hours, and over 6,000 pounds combined with the volunteers that packed cabbage. We then went on a tour with our instructor around the facility to learn more about Forgotten Harvest. A few of the many foods that they collect and package are yogurts, Slim Jims, and Chezz-Its. They were many crates filed to the top with Chezz-Its lined up in a long row. When we found out it was time for us to leave, Forgotten Harvest everyone left knowing that they made a big difference in many people’s lives by spending a couple of hours by packaging diced pepperoni. We definitely wanted to come back and help out some more another time.