Seasoned Salt and Light

I had a real reason to get out of bed today (other than to relieve my bladder)!

A former coworker invited me (and two other former coworkers in the same boat) to meet her at the Dallas Zoo to help with a monthly project for the Genesis Women's Shelter and the North Texas Food Bank. We arrived at 8:30 to an otherwise empty parking lot filled with four single file lines of cars -- about 200 of them running along the perimeter. All were there to pick up food for the month. They told us some had arrived as early as 5:00 a.m. Obviously this was a big day in their world.

You know how lately grocery stores have had those bins of pre-filled brown paper bags next to the checkout stand that you can impulse buy? Well, this is where they end up. I have all but ignored them, but now that I know firsthand where they go, I will consider purchasing one next time (if not for someone else, perhaps for my own future use).

At first it didn't look like there was much to do, and the organizer thought there may have been too many of us. Some of the other volunteers seemed to be there for some kind of work release program - they had to sign in to get community service credit. But overall it was a cheerful and enthusiastic group and everyone just wanted to be put to good use.

We set up stations and counted bottled water and other items to pass out to the cars as they pulled up to the distribution point. They presented vouchers and depending on the number of vouchers they had, we stocked up their trunk accordingly.

Of course, my little group made unemployment jokes as we worked, laughing about how we might be in the lines one day soon, though I doubt any of us truly believes that will ever happen, myself included. I wondered though if any of the people waiting patiently for these meager handouts ever banished that same thought at one time.

The majority of them were in pretty banged up cars -- plywood floorboards, hefty bag windows, missing bumpers, etc. One guy had a completely flat tire, but kept on driving. And one woman was not in a car but on a motorized chair. She was in the last line, so just sat there exposed in the cold for an hour, until it was her turn. She was so grateful. She teared up and just kept saying "God bless you, you don't know what this means to me." We loaded her up good. I'm guessing we reduced her chair's normal speed from 15mph to about 5mph.

Because we overrationed in the beginning, we had to begin handing out cases of food instead of bags or risk being stuck with lots of leftovers. Particularly amusing was the overabundance of seasoned salt. The last several cars received like eight cases of salt each. Not jars but cases. I wondered how many cases of hypertension we helped create for poor little Medicaid in that brief window of time.

I also thought about how hard it would be to milk this kind of system. Today, being last in line paid off. But I bet there are days when the last in line don't get anything. I'm glad it didn't come to that.

Anyway, it was a great reminder of God's provision for all of us. Sometimes we are in the fortunate position to be on the giving end. And sometimes all we can do is hold out our hands and receive. Either way, we are blessed by it.