Hi all, I’m back to update you on my service trip in Northern CA. I last left off on last Tuesday, a day before my service began.

Now that I have had 2 full days of service at Food for People, I’m happy to share my experience with you. To sum up the experience so far, it’s been a lot of hard labor and work.

On my first day, I started off by meeting the staff and other volunteers at the Food Bank. (Most of them were super cool college students from the nearby university). Afterwards, I was asked to do a number of tasks– sort the pantry, clean and bag produce, weigh bags to be shipped to homeless shelters and senior centers.

Wednesday was a long day, filled with a lot of sorting, cleaning and sweeping. Thursday was a nice break, and Friday I went back for more service. I spent the whole day there, and there was a huge “Potato project”. Food for People got a donation from a nearby potato farm and received about 1000 pounds (yes, one thousand) of potatoes, and they needed the volunteers to clean them off and sort them.

After that long day of service on Friday, I attended a fun event for International Women’s Day! It was at the nearby Arcata playhouse where they had many women come sing, speak and laugh with other women who came to attend. It was a great experience to be surrounded by other strong women of northern CA and see how they use their feminism and intersectionality in their community.

The next day I spent some time exploring! On Saturday, I went to the nearby Eureka bay and saw some beautiful dunes. (We didn’t stay too long because of how rainy) Afterwards, we travelled up to a smaller redwoods forest, filled with absolute beauty! I’m looking forward to going to the real redwoods next weekend, when it is sunnier.

That night, I went to a dance competition concert in Eureka, where the family I am staying with had a friend in the competition. It was a beautiful theater and a great show! The dancers were so beautiful and talented.

The next day was a beautiful sunny day, and we took a hike on the dunes and went to a Pacific beach! I haven’t been to the Pacific in a while, so it was nice to dip my feet in the cold water.

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Thanks for checking out my projects progress and reading about all the work and fun I’m having! I’ll make sure to come up with a few more posts before my project ends in a couple weeks. Have a good week!