Final Service Learning Post Allison Blanning

Today was my group's final day of service learning. When we first arrived at the shelter, the other volunteers told us that they didn't have a lot of work for us to do. This quickly changed, as shipments of donated foods kept pouring in. For the first time, we had the entire group working on the same project at the same time. We created an assembly line that helped get the food packaged more quickly. Some people ripped bags that the food would eventually go into, some kept the food boxes restocked, and others delivered the food to the distribution room. We got a huge amount of work done in a relatively short span of time. The work quickly grew to be exhausting because we would think that we had done everything that there was to do when more food was delivered and needed to be sorted and packaged. The other volunteer groups that volunteer at the same time as us had left and we were still working, up until our usual time of 12:30. Although the work packaging food was rewarding, I personally wish that I could have spent my last service learning filling specific orders for families and giving them out to the needy. When I worked at the front lines,  I could see the tangible effect my work was having on other people's lives. Overall, I think our service learning group has learned a lot through our hard work at SOS. We have seen that our brief volunteering jobs that happen only once a month can really make a difference in the lives of struggling Orange County residents.