Reflection On Serving At Foodchain

Final Post: The Semester's Work Summed Up

In my last post on this blog, I use a video reflection to talk about some of my favorite parts of serving at the FoodChain as well as some of the most challenging things I faced. One thing that I left out of one of my favorite things I did while volunteering at the FoodChain, was on my very last day volunteering, Carter, Asa and I actually constructed a table out of scrap wood the FoodChain had so they could use it in their greeting area. If I am being honest Carter and Asa definitely knew a lot more about how to make a table then I did and did a phenomenal job putting it together while still giving me an opportunity to help when I could and teach me lessons a long the way. It was a very cool experience and I learned a lot. I left that day feeling more proud of my work than ever. We were actually able to see the product of our hard work help out their facility. It was great. As I have said before, I thoroughly enjoyed my time volunteering at the FoodChain and the people I got to work with. I am very thankful for the opportunity to serve the community in an awesome way. It also allowed for a lot of personal growth in my own life. Overall, it was a wonderful experience.

My Favorite Experience

Recently, during my service with Foodchain, I had the most fun there so far. In my video, I discuss this experience and what exactly made it so great for me. It was nice to finally feel like I was helping Foodchain on the front lines instead of working in the background

As mentioned in the video, here is the picture of all the fish waste that gets collected at the bottom of the tanks. This waste is put into a larger storage tank until it is sold to farms as great fertilizer.

          

Pictures taken by me

Also, here is the table we were able to build. I had a ton of fun building it and I am sure it is something I will never forget.

Picture taken by me

Building Tables, Building Dreams

I have now been to Foodchain a combined four times and it only gets to be more fun every time I go. While I signed up for a volunteer spot during open hours to show visitors around the building, this time they had something different for me. The first thing I was asked to do was help Carter scoop fish poop out of the bottoms of all the planting tanks. This, as you may have guessed, was not the fun part of the day. However, fish poop does not really smell that bad and the work went fairly quickly anyway, with both of us working together it took only about a half hour to clean three tanks. The fun part of our day started when we finished cleaning the tanks and Anne, the volunteer coordinator for Foodchain, told us their borrowed table needed to go back to West Sixth Brewery and she needed us to build her a new one from scratch. Up until this point all we had really done at Foodchain was menial labor such as breaking apart pallets and sweeping so we were happy for the opportunity to do some skilled labor, even if the limit of our tools was a cross cut saw and a power drill. However, this was no trouble for us and we got to work measuring and sawing the boards for the table top right away. Carter and I both had some experience working with power tools so this project was not the liability nightmare it sounds like.

Fairly quickly we had what looked basically like a table top, though lacking some unimportant features such as legs. Then after screwing the whole thing together, and then taking it all apart again as we neglected to screw the boards in on the correct side of the table top, we were ready to begin sanding the top of the table.

The sanding portion did not take long as the wood we used already had a somewhat smooth top and we were soon ready to replace to old borrowed table with our new and improved, homemade table. We did need to get creative in order to put legs under it but luckily there were milk crates and cinder blocks that worked better than we could have hoped.

Though our table may not be the prettiest one every built, we all hope that it will serve Foodchain for years to come and hopefully one day it will be upgraded to have legs as well. Perhaps that can be the next project we tackle at Foodchain.

Final Reflection on My Time Spent at FoodChain

With the spring semester rounding up and the school year coming to a close, I wanted to do one final blog post regarding my service learning organization the FoodChain. This video speaks on my reflection of volunteering at the FoodChain over the course of this past semester. I am very grateful that I was able to serve at such a place. Their vision and passion for the community is contagious. I plan to go back and help in ways I can this summer and over the course of my next four years here at the University of Kentucky. Overall, I am extremely thankful for the people at FoodChain and the time I got to spend there. It has been a wonderful experience that I will not forget!

Video Reflection

So far volunteering at Foodchain has been a mostly lackluster, with the volunteer opportunities being mostly fairly dull, such as sweeping the floors or sitting and waiting to show visitors around the facility during open hours. This is not a huge complaint as I understand they need work done that is not extraordinarily exciting and generally I am happy to oblige. However, this Thursday's volunteer opportunity certainly took the cake for dull and hard work when my group mates and I spent roughly 3 hours breaking apart wooden pallets by hand with crowbars and claw hammers.

My office for the day.

However, though it might have been fairly dull and hard work, I was happy to help Foodchain in any way I could, even if it was not particularly exciting. I definitely am still looking forward to my next visit to Foodchain, whatever the work they need done may be.

Service So Far

Up to this point, volunteering at Foodchain has really begun to hit a high note. In my video I talk about what has kick-started this enthusiasm compared to how things were at the beginning of the semester. I also discuss my feelings towards working their so far.

In the video I mentioned a kitchen that Foodchain has been working on. Below is a picture of how the room looks before Foodchain gets a hold of it and touches it up to make it look a little nicer.

Taken from foodchainlex.org

Also, I mentioned that I delivered a tour. The photo I have included for this is not personally one that I took. I wanted to take one like it but I felt that it would be somewhat creepy for a college student to be taking pictures of random people and they might not like that.

Taken from foodchainlex.org

Video Reflection

In a general recap of the video, I have had a fantastic experience volunteering at the FoodChain. In reflecting on my time spent there, two things stick out to me the most. The first thing that I have thoroughly enjoyed about my volunteering is the time I have spent with the staff there because of who passionate and friendly they are. Secondly, coupling with the first thing I enjoyed about helping at volunteering was the knowledge I gained through spending time at the FoodChain from the staff there. They are incredible teachers, patient, and willing to explain things in simplistic ways that I could understand. I love what the FoodChain stands for cultivating education through the demonstration of their sustainable food system of aquaponics. Moreover, beyond just the education and demonstration, ultimately care about helping and serving the people in the community they are around to create a better reality for those that live there. This is why I have loved volunteering at the FoodChain and helping the vision they have.

(acquired from www.foodchainlex.org)

(acquired from www.foodchainlex.org)