Kate Sanford Service Learning Reflection Kitchen Shift

I love to cook, and I know how hard it is to keep a kitchen clean. I can’t even imagine keeping a kitchen as big as a basketball court clean! I couldn’t imagine it, until I went to Project Angel Heart. All the tables and food were extremely orderly, and everybody seemed like they knew exactly what they were doing and had a system to it. Each area was designated to a particular task, and all the food was categorized and stacked neatly. The tile floor and metal tables were squeaky clean and the air was fresh.

I must admit, I was a little intimidated when I first put on my apron and hat on and walked through the kitchen. The orderliness and cleanliness of the kitchen made it obvious that they had particular ways of doing things and I was a little worried that I might do something wrong. There is a lot of pressure to do things right when others are dependent on you. But, there was no time to stop and think, and the main chef that evening put us right to work.

There are numerous jobs to be done throughout the week to actually put all the food together so it is ready to be delivered. However each one of the jobs takes quite a long time. Something as simple as chopping a pepper can take hours because when you are feeding 700 people, you have to chop at least 700 peppers. There is more than one person working on the job, but it stills seems like a massive amount of food.

The first think I was assigned to do was to package bread rolls in a bag. One bread roll in one bag, to be specific. After 15 minutes I had hardly made a dent in the box of bread rolls and I felt like that is all I would be doing for the rest of the night. To make the time go by, I tried to think of every person I would be giving food to. That way, instead of thinking about how many bread rolls there were, I was thinking about how many people I was helping. It helped significantly and before I knew it, I was done.

After I packaged more bread than I think I have ever seen in my entire life, the chef came out with about 50 stacks of pita bread. Apparently there is a lot of bread in the world.

As the night went on, I became more and more comfortable with what I was doing and there seemed to be a common feeling of contentment in the room. Everybody knew they were helping, and everybody seemed like they were in a good mood.

By the end of the night I was actually in a good mood and was very content about the task I had just completed. Not because I had just become a total expert at opening and closing plastic bags, but because next time those bags are opened, it will be with thankful hands. Once again, I was filled with the feeling of goodness from helping others.