Feeding South Florida by Michaelah

Feeding South Florida by Michaelah - November 2019 Scholarship Essay

Marian Wright Edelman once said, “Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.” Feeding South Florida is a service based organization that works around the clock, day and night, in hopes of decreasing hunger among the homeless community. Volunteering for this life changing organization gave my volunteer team and I an amazing chance to contribute to our community’s hopes of overcoming poverty and hunger. I've garnered beneficial organizational skills, such as learning how to sort canned and boxed foods, as well as verifying that their expiration dates have not passed. My role as group leader required ensuring that every member was completing their delegated task efficiently, assisting anyone who needed help, and most importantly inspecting canned goods prior to distribution. Once all tasks were completed, we cleaned up our area and returned to the garage to send off the 76,390 pounds of canned food that we collected. But the day didn’t stop there; afterwards, my facilitator was so appreciative of my hard work that she granted me the chance to meet an actual family who was on the receiving end of our contributions. Ms. Rubin, a humble and kindhearted former primary school janitor who was laid off once the school had shut down, was structurally unemployed. Ms. Rubin was responsible for her two boys, Stephen and Alex, so she’d constantly feed them before even feeding herself. After idle conversation and laughter with Ms. Rubin, she decided to show me a photo of her and her sons two years ago. The difference in Ms. Rubin’s weight was uncanny. She had gone from a healthy 155 pound woman, to a considerably thin 90 pound woman. Seeing this photo made my entire perspective and appreciation of life alter completely. I realized that I had taken many things for granted. I immediately ceased my wasteful food habits, such as eating only half of something and dumping the rest, even if it was my reduced lunch from my school. Even after continuously devoting numerous hours of dedicated labor to this organization, I felt that I could collect more goods if I reached out to a larger crowd. Subsequently, I decided to start a Harvest Food Drive at my own high school, which is located in a highly populated area on a community college campus, for the duration of November. Every member of my student body supported my pitch during our weekly board meeting. Seeing them all come together as one and agree on something was a shock to the world and resulted in a domino effect of cooperating instead of competing with one another. Both juniors and seniors were bringing in goods together and of their own accord, rather than attempting to turn this into a competition. This drive resulted in hundreds of canned goods, ranging from beans to pineapples, being donated to the less fortunate. Ultimately, the success of my first donation drive motivated me to continue constructing donation drives wherever my path takes me. Whether it’s at college, my future job as a Volunteer Coordinator, or even at my future child's school, I hope to create donation drives everywhere! Hopefully my peers and fellow student body members realized the difference in our community's energy. Seeing the behind the scenes aftermath of donating unused items to food drives and homeless shelters was the most rewarding part of this impactful experience and having my own school willingly pay it forward is only a start.