Bland Ministry Center: A Place More than Just Serving Food

By Andrew Jones

On Tuesday, our group went to our backyard (literally) to volunteer at the Bland Ministry Center's food pantry. I worked at a soup kitchen when I was in the 7^th and 8^th grades, but never at a food pantry, so my expectations beforehand were comparable to the work I did at the soup kitchen. Although there were some similarities, there were many aspects I did not expect, many of which were surprisingly enjoyable. Before the pantry was open to the public, the volunteers had us work with the preparation of the food we would later distribute that day. A few people from our group worked on putting the frozen foods into plastic bags, and everyone else had different duties pertaining to operating the food pantry. An aspect I was surprised by was that not only did he pantry hold an enormous amount of food, but the pantry also supplied furniture and clothing. The food, by itself, was immense; there was so much, I had no idea where it could have all come from. And that does not include also the amount of donated clothing and furniture we encountered. At around 10 o’clock, people started to roll around the pantry, and for the next two hours, it was nonstop piling this “stuff” into trunks or backseats of cars, SUVs, trucks, etc. A whole array of people came through, but it primarily consisted of the elderly and small families. My duty was to bring the large crates of food supplied by the USDA and Bland County into the hundreds of cars that would come by throughout the time we were there.

The aspect I’d probably enjoyed the most was meeting the people that constantly volunteer there every day. They were all very nice and had very interesting stories to tell. One person, Brian, was probably the most interesting of the group. He was a real blunt yet genuine person, aspects I tend to associate with myself. He told me about how he at first used to despise the food pantry, but then after some time, he became one of their premier volunteers. He also used to be an inmate at the local county jail, but had he not told me beforehand, I would have never guessed that from his personality. He, in many ways, reminded me of my Calculus teacher from high school, as he was also a very blunt and genuine individual. I also met some other interesting folks, but unfortunately, their Southern accents were so strong, that even after being polite and asking them to repeat themselves, I still couldn’t fully understand what they were trying to say. I was extremely pleased when I later found out that we would be returning to the Food Pantry on Thursday. Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a better experience working at the Food Pantry than I did those two days.