Working for the weekend

It's only Tuesday night but I'm already looking forward to the weekend. What a busy week!

Today I accompanied Mary on 3 food drive pick-ups and 1 box delivery--all before noon! Our first stop was St. Susanna Parish in Mason. In one week's time, the students at the school collected 36 boxes of food, and were eager to load the truck for us! Check them out:

Did I mention they collected 907 pounds of food? Oh yeah.

After dropping off that food at Shared Harvest, our next stop was to the Butler County Prosecutor's Office to deliver 20 boxes for their food drive. Then it was back on the road to Ross Middle School for another food drive pick up. Here's what we found when we got there:


The boxes were full of cans--which are very heavy, in case you didn't know. But we didn't have any help this time, so Mary and I strategically loaded the boxes of food using only our precious two-wheel dolly and our brute strength! Turns out we hand-loaded 672 pounds of food.

Our last stop was at the Messiah Lutheran Church where we were to load 50 cases of food packaged by volunteers last weekend. Each case weighed 33 pounds, totaling 1550 pounds of food that we moved into the truck. Here it is, pre-Gus:

Even though food drive pick-ups are more strenuous and definitely more tiring than food drive deliveries, it is a very rewarding feeling at the end of the day to know that all of that food is going to help people in need in our community. It's also a great feeling to pull into Shared Harvest and watch the guys unload all of the food with forklifts!

The rest of the day (and more!) was spent on the Check Out Hunger campaign. I finished preparing the last 80 placards for our last 8 stores, plotted the stores' addresses in my new GPS, then hit the road. I left Shared Harvest at 3:00 and didn't return home until 8:00, but I am happy to say that the 2009 Check Out Hunger Campaign is officially launched! From now until the end of the year, I'll be visiting 15 of the 17 Kroger stores once a week to replace any empty donation coupons at the registers. Fortunately, Sam (one of Shared Harvest's drivers) will monitor the Kroger stores in Oxford and Eaton so that I can shave off about an hour and a half from my weekly travel time! Still, it will be a big task, but, as always, a rewarding one.

For now, though, it's bedtime. I have a tax class tomorrow in Dayton that starts at 8:00 A.M., putting my departure time at 6:30 A.M.

Is it the weekend yet?