Today I volunteered at the bowery mission for the first time during covid. I haven't been to 227 Bowery since 10th grade, and it wasn't all that different. I volunteered for the 10:00 AM lunch prep shift. I signed in and went straight to the back where I met the head chef. He told me to get an apron, put any of my personal belongings into a locker, wash my hands and put a hairnet on. Then I put my gloves on and met a few other volunteers. They were putting away peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. One of the head volunteers said we were going to make and package turkey sandwiches. For the next hour, we opened all the turkey packages, put three slices in each sandwich, and wrapped them up. We ran low on the good bread so for the last 20 minutes we used very thin slices of another kind of bread but wrapped up two sandwiches instead of one in the sandwich paper. I noticed that they try really hard to be fair at the Bowery Mission. They don't want people getting less or more than others, because who knows how much an individual actually needs.
For the second hour of my volunteering shift, we packed up more meals in bags for lunchtime. We had two assembly lines going. One person would put the main meal in the bag, then I would put bread in the bag, then another person put a secondary item in the bag such as fruit or another sandwich. Then the last person would tie it all together sealing the plastic bag and putting it in a huge bin with all the others. Sometimes I would put a secondary item and seal the bags because I noticed we were running behind a little bit. Before the shift ended we put some plastic utensils in new plastic bags to make the next shift easier for the next set of volunteers. All the volunteers were very nice and none of them were new. They all have been longstanding volunteers with The Bowery Mission and seemed really confident. I hope to find my confidence there once I start volunteering regularly each week.
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