wickedwords (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wickedwords) wrote2008-12-06 04:34 pm
wickedwords) wrote2008-12-06 04:34 pm
Volunteer Day and a chance encounter
Why is it that Food Lifeline days always wipe me out? We had the largest group of people that I have worked with (my kid's middle school group, a law firm, and a Seattle Works group). I think we had over 40 people on the lines, sorting through crates of rescued apples for 2 1/5 hours, and putting them into boxes holding about 40 lbs of apples. (Lar and I sorted apples, while Ev loaded finished boxes on the pallets, for later loading onto the truck.)
The volunteer coordinator said that they'd been having a record number of volunteers in the past couple of months, which is excellent news. They can really use the help, as the quicker they do things like this--sort the bad apples from the good--the quicker it can get out to people's tables, and the less the chance that even more apples will rot before people can eat them.
When we were done, we had about 22 pallets, which is a full semi truck load. So we processed about 22,000 lbs of apples -- 11 tons -- which would be about 17,000 meals (if the meals consisted only of apples.) The 'ick' factor on this one was pretty high, as some of the apples had started to rot, and every now and then, you'd go to pick up one, checking it for major issues, and find that the half you couldn't see at first had turned completely to mush.
After, we stopped at Burgermaster for lunch, which is an old fashioned drive-in just off of 520 on the seattle eastside. We pulled in and parked for a 'dine in your car experience'. We chatted and listened to NPR, and at some point, I noticed that this bright green mercedes had pulled in and parked across from us.
"Hey, that guy looks like Bill Gates," I said.
"He is Bill Gates," Lar replied.
"Bill Gates!" my son gurgled, hiding himself in the back seat behind me.
Bill was apparently being a dad today, going out and picking up burgers and shakes for the family at the drive in. It was kinda cool to see him hanging out like the rest of us, except that his car was a lot nicer and cleaner than anyone else's, and no microsoft parking stickers in sight. He eventually drove off with his to-go order while we ate our burgers, and then we headed back to the house.
It was a pretty fun day.
The volunteer coordinator said that they'd been having a record number of volunteers in the past couple of months, which is excellent news. They can really use the help, as the quicker they do things like this--sort the bad apples from the good--the quicker it can get out to people's tables, and the less the chance that even more apples will rot before people can eat them.
When we were done, we had about 22 pallets, which is a full semi truck load. So we processed about 22,000 lbs of apples -- 11 tons -- which would be about 17,000 meals (if the meals consisted only of apples.) The 'ick' factor on this one was pretty high, as some of the apples had started to rot, and every now and then, you'd go to pick up one, checking it for major issues, and find that the half you couldn't see at first had turned completely to mush.
After, we stopped at Burgermaster for lunch, which is an old fashioned drive-in just off of 520 on the seattle eastside. We pulled in and parked for a 'dine in your car experience'. We chatted and listened to NPR, and at some point, I noticed that this bright green mercedes had pulled in and parked across from us.
"Hey, that guy looks like Bill Gates," I said.
"He is Bill Gates," Lar replied.
"Bill Gates!" my son gurgled, hiding himself in the back seat behind me.
Bill was apparently being a dad today, going out and picking up burgers and shakes for the family at the drive in. It was kinda cool to see him hanging out like the rest of us, except that his car was a lot nicer and cleaner than anyone else's, and no microsoft parking stickers in sight. He eventually drove off with his to-go order while we ate our burgers, and then we headed back to the house.
It was a pretty fun day.
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Those were images I *did not need*.
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I meant that maybe he was dangerous, or something! Seriously! *rapid blinking*
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We did apples the first time we did Food Lifeline (you go up to the warehouse in Shorline, right?) and OMG did we have fun. We ended up in a competition with another group of people doing the same thing -- only they were about twice our number.
I am very proud to say that pounds-to-person, we beat them in the apple sorting competition by almost 2:1. ...of course they did something like 25 totes to our, oh, I think we had 15 or so, heh. But we all had fun!
Gratz on the Gates siting! I've lived here 30 years and haven't managed that yet.
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And if you want to see gates, I guess burgermaster is the place. Who knew?