6 months down, 6 to go

Yes--December 20th marked the 6-month mark of my year of service!

In that time:

• I have trained 66 counselors on the Benefit Bank software.
• I have traveled to all 7 counties in my portion of the SW Ohio region. Total miles driven for the Benefit Bank: 3094.3 miles. That would be like driving from Solutions for Progress headquarters in Philadelphia, PA, to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 6 months time. (Why didn't I just do that?)
• I have collected 23,727 pounds of food with either Alex or Holli or Mary over the past 3 months with Gus, the pick-up truck, or Taylor's Ford Explorer (see below). That's the equivalent of a couple of killer whales. And there's more to go!
• I have gotten to know way too many Kroger stores.
  
• I have made some great friends who I will know for years to come.
• I have gained a new perspective of poverty that I would have never had without this position.

This past weekend I saw family members for some early Christmas parties. I received several questions about if I liked my "job" and if I were to go back to June, would I do it again? The answer: yes. Absolutely, yes.

The past 6 months haven't been easy, and as you know, I have questioned my decision to live and work in poverty for a year. But without this position, I wouldn't have gained so many great skills that I can use in the future. For example, without this position, I would have never discovered how creative I could be in the face of a tricky situation. Last Friday, Gus wasn't available for food drive pick ups, and Alex and I can't drive the stick shift pick-up truck. But we still had 11 food drive pick ups to manage! So we recruited Martha and Gary to help out with 4 of the pick ups in the pick-up truck, and Alex and I retrieved the rest in Taylor's Ford Explorer. Amazingly, 2 barrels and 10 boxes could fit in the vehicle at one time, so we were able to do all of our scheduled pick-ups by 1:00 P.M.!

Don't believe me? Take a look:

And while I'm at it, a quick shout out to the students and staff at Fairfield Intermediate School. They collected 1250 pounds of food, which we picked up last Thursday. Way to go, kiddos!
They even decorated the boxes used to collect the food. At a time when it is easy to get stressed out and overwhelmed (especially with so many places doing food drives) these boxes served as a great reminder of what this is all about: