Day 6: The Final Hours

As we woke up this morning, we couldn't believe that we only had three short hours of service remaining on our trip. Though our week has been extremely busy, it really did fly by. As we drove to our final project, our minds shifted from reminiscing about the previous days, and we were ready to get to work. When we returned to The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, we jumped right in and set a lofty goal to beat the day before. That goal, despite some adverse conditions, was achieved.

Today, our group was a bit smaller. Yesterday, there were several volunteer groups that assisted in sorting food, but today, it was just us. We thought there was no way we could match our numbers from yesterday, but we ended up exceeding them. After about three hours of work, we sorted 5 tons of food, which amounted to 13.5 pallets and 8,750 meals. The food bank staff actually had to forklift down some extra pallets from the back for us to sort because we finished the normal amount so quickly. They didn’t expect the Volunteer factor. That is what Tennessee Volunteers do.

After several group pictures at the Food Bank, we returned back to Highland UMC for a quick lunch. Our afternoon was filled with several activities that offered a break from service work. First, we enjoyed some delicious local ice cream from FRESH and played cornhole and giant Connect4 while we ate. After this, we ventured to William B. Umstead for a nice hike around a beautiful lake and a little bit of Frisbee throwing. For dinner, we went to Big Al’s Barbeque and feasted on smoked meats, delicious sides, and spectacular sauces. With over 50 sauces, each bite was a completely different experience. We enjoyed the 'que and spoke with Big Al himself who was extremely welcoming and showing spectacular SEC hospitality; he even let us try some of his specialty smoked filet mignon. With full stomachs and satisfied palates, we made our way back to Highland for our final night.

Our final group reflection dealt with salient identities and served as a great source of thought and discussion to carry us beyond our week in Raleigh. Filled with a passion for the issues surrounding food security and justice, our group is armed with the skills it needs to continue on as active citizens and educated volunteers who can make a difference where assistance is needed. It has been a long week, but we are all proud of the work we did and immensely thankful for the opportunity we had to do it. We finished off the night with a birthday celebration for Kristi and Riley with homemade chocolate and vanilla cakes. With a couple more riddles and a round of Catch Phrase, we turned in for the night for the last time on our 2017 ASB. We anxiously await our next opportunity to serve as a group and look forward to reflecting on all of the experiences had and memories made on our impactful trip.

Go Vols!

Nickolas Jernigan and Chase Toth

Day 5: Food Bank and N2N

We rolled out of our sleeping arrangements at about 7am, just as we have the last four days. After we ate our breakfast of cereal, pop-tarts and orange juice, we began to make our lunches. However, as we began to assemble our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we noticed something was missing: jelly. So, after a brief stop at the supermarket, we continued on to The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.

As we pulled up, we were astonished at how large and new the place looked. Later, during orientation, this observation was confirmed. In fact, the organization had just moved into this facility in November. After making name tags, we shuffled into the warehouse, where we would soon be sorting food donated from grocery stores and other sister organizations. Since the assortment of food was random, in bulk and often expired or partially damaged, we learned the criteria for sorting and distinguishing between food we could keep and food we unfortunately had to dispose of. After this, we got to work sorting and placing the boxes of food that qualified onto pallets labeled "drinks/water," "dry goods," "plastics, glass and cans" and "non-food." The energy in the room was electric. Fortunately the other volunteers that were not in our group were just as energetic as we were. At the end, we discovered that we filled ten pallets, which amounted to about 9,000 pounds and 7,500 meals, in total.

After a quick ride back to Neighbor 2 Neighbor, we ate lunch and talked with Royce, our contact for the organization. He further educated us on the history of the organization and the various locations it has assumed over the years. We were astonished to learn that the center, for a time period of about 15 months, met in nothing but a large tent, no matter the weather. This organization is truly dedicated and invested in the community of South Park.

We then had various tasks to be completed. For example, we tested the PH of the soil, constructed and placed garden beds, cleared the surrounding area, leveled the walkways, and pulled up the truly infinite crabgrass, which was by far everyone's favorite task. Also, we forged the Heart of the Ocean. Towards the end Royce surprised us with a healthy helping of Oreo's and pink lemonade. As it was our last day, we took pictures and promised to find each other on "The 'Gram."

Later that night, as we enjoyed our dinner of tacos, we reflected on the opportunities we have been given. We are truly a blessed group of individuals and are so happy to be sharing these blessings with other people. It is hard to believe that tomorrow is our last full day of the trip, but we would not trade this experience for anything.

-Nick Jernigan and Nathan Gardner

Day 4: From the Garden to the Table and Riley's Birthday

Today we woke up to a harmony of cricket chirps, not because the blessing of spring provided a natural alarm clock, but because my 7:00 AM alarm was set to that sound and to the annoyance of the rest of the group, I slept straight through the first 5 minutes of it. After waking up, eating breakfast together, singing a morning Happy Birthday to Riley, and boarding the vans, we set off to our first destination in downtown Raleigh, The Shepard's Table. There we were so warmly welcomed by a group of regular volunteers who offered us aprons and got us started immediately preparing food that we would soon serve for lunch. Some of our preparations included washing and slicing potatoes, folding napkins and silverware, and cutting fruit. At 11:30, after a gathering and prayer with all the volunteers who so thoughtfully put together a cupcake and candle for Riley, we opened the doors. Almost immediately, people started coming in and going through the line to get a plate of warm, fresh food. As the dining room was filling up, Devon came to the station where Jamie and I were filling drinks and snagged a couple of pitchers. Many of the servers in the food line looked on as she did much more than refill their drinks. She, along with Nick and Nathan, smoothly worked their way around the room and created an atmosphere of fine dining and a sense of welcoming and warmth. This place with such modest beginnings, now serves more than 250 people every day and we felt lucky to be able to be a part of their vision to provide the people of downtown Raleigh with warm, homemade meals.

After lunch, we went back to Neighbor to Neighbor, where we picked up on our work in the garden from Monday. Today, Royce, who is in charge of the organization, introduced us to his friends Dr. Steve Edwards and Casanova "Cas" Womack, who helped us finish weeding the infinite crabgrass and build/install the garden beds. With fifteen of us weeding, drilling, constructing, and shoveling, the time flew by and after a few hours we could already see significant change in our endeavors. The whole group pitched in carrying cinder blocks and shoveling and leveling the dirt to make one large garden bed. And after that, Kristi and Chase were power drill pros when there were making the garden beds and Zach and Samantha quickly shoveled away the soil for a walking path between the beds. Between starting a dance off to pat down the soil path and finding grubs who resembled Matt and his gf, this hump day at the Neighbor to Neighbor garden was one to remember and cherish.

We came back to the church where we joined the Highland congregation for their Wednesday dinner of delicious brisket, mashed potatoes, and brownies with ice cream. We so greatly appreciated their generosity and warm hospitality even though they asked us to perform a rendition of "Rocky Top" to the entire room before dinner. Later in the evening, we reflected on the day and compared the direct service we were a part of at The Sheppard's Table to the more indirect service at the community garden, and we decided on the equal importance of both kinds of work.

- Heather Winter and Caroline Arias

Day 3: Back to the Basics with The Salvation Army

Day 3 was full of volunteering at Raleigh, North Carolina's Salvation Army of Wake County. We started the day at the Salvation Army's Center of Hope facility and were blown away by the scale of impact and amount of resources that the center holds. They not only serve open soup lines to the community, but they also have a women and children's shelter that serves over 90 people. Similar to yesterday, our group was divided up so that we could accomplish many tasks in the most efficient way. One group addressed the needs of the cafeteria, by cleaning and mopping the gathering area. Another group packed 195 school lunches and snack bags for the children who reside in the shelter. This was very eye-opening, as Ms. Margo, the volunteer coordinator at the Salvation Army, revealed that over 5,000 children in the Raleigh area experience homelessness. It was crazy to see, first-hand, how large of an issue food insecurity can be. Our third group spent the morning organizing food donations and sorting out expired food. It was the longest, most tedious task of the day, but due to its arduous nature, our group was united by the end. It was also there, that the group talked to Mr. Wilbur who is a frequent volunteer and former beneficiary of the Salvation Army. Mr. Wilbur shared his life story with a few of our group members that reminded us of the importance of perseverance and hope.

Our work with the Salvation Army did not stop there. For the afternoon, we drove down the street to the Salvation Army's main family store distribution center. After Sam's 10-minute parking effort (with perpetual backseat driving), all 15 of us piled into Sam's beautifully parked, 12-passenger van to nourish our bodies with the blessing that is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Many, many Welch's fruit snack packs, and a few selfie stick snapshots later, we were refueled and ready to tackle our next service project.

Walking into the warehouse of the Salvation Army's distribution center earned a chorus of 15 successive "whoas" due to the size and overload of donations.  As always, we jumped right into the system and divided up to cover the most ground (there was A LOT of ground).

Groups tasks included:

1. Organizing hangers - where we met the Dancing Queen that was Deborah. Her energy and excitement for her work was contagious.  We're not lying when we tell you she knew every word to each and every gospel song on the radio!!
2. Testing the donated electronic items - where we found a 1940s hair dryer, perfect for our perms!
3. Sorting donated clothes - where we couldn't help but laugh at the wide range of fashion present!
4. Compacting stained items - where we were blown away by the compressing machine that turned a pile of clothing items into a 905-pound "barrel" that could then be auctioned off. **Side note** all family store proceeds go straight back to various Salvation Army programs and initiatives..super cool!
5. Building a furniture screen- where some of our fellow ASB group members were excited to be able to  contributed to the simple "aesthetic" present throughout the Salvation Army distribution warehouse.

While our afternoon activity was more of an "indirect" service project since we were not working with food and/or gardening, we were amazed by the work the Salvation Army does for the people who struggle with food insecurity. We think that an amazing part of this trip is the idea that we are addressing not only the results of poverty and injustice (food insecurity), but the roots of the issue. We are grateful for the opportunity to gain a greater perspective on how nonprofits work in this sense. As we saw with the Salvation Army today, sustainability is so important for a nonprofit organization. If it were not for the chain of family stores, that both serve the community with reduced prices and generate funds for other meaningful projects, the Salvation Army would not be as impactful as it continues to be today.  

We look forward to seeing another dimension of our trip's theme, as we will be volunteering at a soup kitchen for the first time tomorrrow. We are also excited to return to Neighbor2Neighbor to continue our work on rebuilding their garden!

Goodnight and Go Vols!

-Alexia Vacca and Jaime Marquis

The group at the Center of Hope :)

Grocery bags ready to be distributed to families!

Alexia, Caroline, and Heather organizing hangers and working hard at the Salvation Army distribution center!

Day 2: Rocky Top in the Rain

Inspiring, rewarding, wet. No other descriptors could quite do justice for these spring-breakers first day of service. When our nutritious breakfast of not-so-obviously generic cereal was interjected by a church goer, Mrs. Donna, I don't think we could have prepared for how the day would play out. Mrs. Donna, a volunteer coordinator at Highland and a very smart woman suggested that we being our day with coffee, and even brewed us a fresh container of the caffeinated beverage.

We were introduced to Mr. Cullen - a church member, gardener extraordinaire, and my new personal hero. Mr. Cullen has worked his whole like as an agriculture expert and educator in the community. A few years ago, he began the community garden at Highland Methodist Church, and today, his work has spread throughout the country and even into Germany. His forest "swagger" and passion awed our group of volunteers. As an agriculture major myself,  I was quite struck by his wealth of experience and his work has inspired me to keep striving to do what I love and I feel that I will come to learn a great deal from this individual. Enough about me though... When Mr. Cullen lead us to the church's community garden, we stuck it in top gear. Some of the group dedicated their time to bamboo harvesting, while others were tasked with mixing soil or resurrecting a garden bed to its former glory. There was not a person who, had it not gotten progressively cooler through the day, would not have broken a sweat, and I don't think there's a person who would trade that experience for much else.

Our afternoon was filled with an equally inspiring, and yet difficult adventure at Neighbor to Neighbor. The group, ready for work in a larger garden than we had experienced in the morning, had an air of confusion about them when we arrived at Neighbor2Nieghbor. A patch of dirt littered crabgrass roots filled the space beside the parking lot. Neighbor2Neighbor is a nonprofit in Raliegh that always seemed to one up our expectations. As he explained that they offer housing to families, I thought that would be the limit of their aid, but as Royce, the leader of the organization, continued to explain the goals, I learned that they provide schooling, food, recreation, career exploration, and even have a program to sell solar panels to developing countries.

The mission, that we accepted despite near freezing temperatures and a rainy forecast, was to remove the roots from the soil. I won't lie, the work itself was difficult and there wasn't much to it. But what I can say is that something more important grew out of that soil, kinship. About three hours into our journey, Rocky Top could be heard throughout the downtown , Raleigh neighborhood. This group of 15 people who had met the day before had somehow become one unit working in the dirt. For others, it was even more rewarding. The chance to feel as though you're making a difference or to just get down and dirty is sometimes a rare opportunity for some members of the group. You can call us crazy, degenerates of a self-interested society, or just people that would trade the chance to tan on a beach for the chance to play in the mud, but we won't care because we love it.

The stresses of the day are quite apparent by the time of posting of this blog. As the group turned in early, I too was far too tired to stay awake.

-Zach Brown

Day 1: "Now 'Listen', This is ASB 2017"

A crisp, overcast Knoxville morning kicked off our 2017 ASB Trip as we blared "Rocky Top" from our van's speakers while we waited in the Andy Holt parking lot. Matt, sporting some sick Bermuda shorts, and Sam, making that previous fact clear, got us pumped and ready to go for the long drive to Raleigh. Devan, displaying a clear affection towards a McDonald's breakfast, insisted we meet her at the Sevierville exit rather than on campus (this certainly wasn't because she overslept 😉). Following our breakfast and fellowship at Exit 407, we embarked on the arduous journey that laid ahead. Through thick fog, substantial snow coverage, and minor car trouble, we fueled ourselves with throwback jams and powered through to reach our destination. Pastor Charlie from Highland United Methodist greeted us upon our arrival and gave us an amazing tour and introduction to his beautiful and welcoming church and community. After unpacking, our group split into two with one group venturing to Walmart for groceries and 'forgotten' items while the other stayed back to play cards and run around the neighborhood. At our unification, we went into the parking lot at HUMC to throw around an "Original Frisbee" disc. It took us a while, but we finally got the hang of the old, wonky contraption; some of our struggles are shown below. While outside, our dinner arrived from Randy's Pizza, a gracious gift from Leslie Needham of the Raleigh-Cary Jewish Community Center. Gathered around a large dining table, we indulged in our pizza while I started sharing some riddles for our group to ponder. Many have yet to solve them, and I am sure the riddles will continue to nag everyone throughout the week. After dinner, we had our first reflection where we set expectations and goals for the week. We are truly a diverse group of individuals with a unique range of interests, and I look forward to getting to know each and every person on our trip. We have much to learn about Food Security and Justice, but by the end of our trip, we will be armed with the tools necessary to be active citizens and stewards of social change within our respective communities. To finish the evening, we played hide-and-seek as we explored our wonderful housing site. As we turn in for the night, we are anxious and nervous, yet excited for what tomorrow and the rest of the week will bring. Until then, good night and Go Vols!

-Chase Toth

What is Food Justice?

        Food Justice is a broad term that is used throughout the community to refer to many different ideas. One could say it refers to a person's right to grow their own food. Another could say it refers to everyone having healthy foods. While both of these are correct, we believe Food Justice refers to a community's ability to easily access healthy, sustainable foods that are high in nutritious value. Communities that lack access to these foods are referred to as Food Deserts. This concept is one of the guiding tenants of our Alternative Break trip to Raleigh.
     

       

         Food Justice should not be confused with Food Security. The later simply refers to a person's ability to access and afford food. Food Security seeks to combat the physical state of hunger. It is possible for an individual to be food secure, but not be the benefit of Food Justice. For example, a family that lives in a rural community without access to fresh foods may sustain themselves on frozen and processed meals, but it is likely they are not getting their full nutritional balance.

        It is crucial to note that Food Security is still an incredibly important issue. It is much better to have any food than none at all. However, we believe that access to quality and nutritious foods should be the right of all people. We recognize that inadequate access is not a supply issue, but rather an issue created by lack of political and social will to provide quality foods to everyone. This is not out of malign intention, but largely due to a lack of exposure to the problem. Of course, most people realize extreme hunger exists. Still, very few think about the downstream impact of only providing vulnerable individuals unhealthy and cheap foods.
 

        That's where our trip comes in! Urban communities- like Raleigh- are often plagued by inadequate access to healthy foods. That's why our group will be working in a community garden in Raleigh as well as a garden at Highland UMC. We will also be working with other organizations that are aimed at ending food insecurity, but are also committed to doing so in a just way. We hope that this experience will show our participants more than just the issue, but the solutions as well. Check out the link below to learn more about Food Security and Justice. As always, stay tuned for more updates from Food Security and Justice 2017!

http://www.sustainabletable.org/280/food-security-food-access