Benette Yates

College of Southern Nevada

Professor Olivia Grant

Edu 280

July 25, 2021

 A Summary of My Volunteer Service

I had the opportunity to volunteer with Three Square, a nonprofit organization, and a member of

Feeding America. I have never volunteered at a food bank before, so this was my first experience

to getting signed up, setting up a schedule to give my available time to help, and meeting the

friendly employees that briefly trained and assigned me where to work inside the warehouse food

distribution. On a hot summer month in Las Vegas, working full time and doing the Cohort

Highly Qualified Subs courses I did not think that I was going to enjoy this part of the

requirement of the course. I made it happen and what a fun and truly enjoyable experience it

was. I got to meet numerous friendly and happy people who are from different cultural

backgrounds and ethnicity where our goal is to give our time to pack foods to be distributed to

the communities.

My first schedule was at schools in the Henderson area. I volunteered for three hours on a

Saturday. The schedule was from seven thirty to ten thirty in the morning. When I arrived before

the scheduled time there were volunteers already there. I had to sign in a laptop. I introduced

myself to the friendly group chatting and we waited till it was time to start distributing. Cars

pulled in eventually. A lady and I was assigned to the dry food boxes. There were 2 crates of

boxes of dry goods. There was also a crate of boxes of minced beef, a crate of dry green beans, a

crate of prepacked vegetables and fruits, and a crate of wheat bread. It was such a pleasure to be

able to give people who needed food. To see their happy and thankful faces as we load their

trunk with food gratified my heart.

My second schedule was at the food distribution warehouse. The reception place and the waiting

area looked elegant to me. The ambience made you feel like you were in a hotel. The volunteers

and I were called and got assigned to sort out packaged foods. There were about 5 crates of huge
boxes of packaged frozen food for the volunteers to sort. We had to sort them by protein, dairy,

frozen vegetables, and bakery. Then we had to prepack apples in a net bag. There were five or

more crates of huge boxes of apples. I have never seen that many apples. We packed the apples

in individual net bag and put them in huge boxes. That was a lot of work with many bending

downs to reach the apples below the boxes. The older adults like me were seriously at work

while the younger generation group were happy chatting with one another and taking pictures of

themselves.

My third volunteer schedule was another Saturday at a school in Henderson. It was a three-hour

schedule. There were more volunteers that signed up for this volunteer opportunity. The system

was the same, you sign in and get assigned to your crates. Cars drive through and you fill up

their trunk with food. People in the community leave with grateful faces and hearts. What I

loved so much about my volunteering time was being able to meet a couple of my peers I take

classes within the cohort. I met Kristen Hunsaker and her family. I also got to meet Irma Nielsen

and her husband. What fabulous and wonderful people they are. My volunteering will not end

here. I will go back again and volunteer my time to be part of people from different walks of life

and cultural background to help with food distribution and packing foods at the warehouse.