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!