Kristen Elliott's Kitchen Shift Reflection

After surviving the rush hour traffic congesting Colorado Blvd, Alex, Katie, and I rushed into the unremarkable warehouse fearing we were late. Breathless, we entered the building to find it almost completely empty. I turned to Alex with a perplexed look on my face, but before I had the chance to voice my confusion, a boisterous woman wearing an apron and a name tag designating her as, “Joy,” swept down upon us. With an enormous smile, she handed us each a sharp knife and left us alone in the room just as swiftly as she had arrived. My fellow students and I had arrived at the headquarters for Project Angel Heart, an organization that prepares and delivers nutritional meals to people who have life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, HIV, and AIDS. Today we were volunteering our time to assist Project Angel Heart prepare meals in the kitchen. As soon as Joy had left us, we turned around to find massive containers filled with carrots, broccoli, and mushrooms. We joined the few other apron-bearing workers at one of the several long meal preparation tables and got to work.

At first, we worked in silence. The sounds of ten knives quickly chopping through vegetables filled the large kitchen, as well as the soft background noise of a stereo playing a classic rock station. There was sparse chitchat among the other workers, from which we were excluded. It quickly became apparent that the others were familiar with one another, having spent weeks or even years working the same Monday night shift together. While working, they casually caught up on everything from family matters to the previous night’s football game. Alex, Katie, and I stood together listening and vigorously chopping, occasionally chatting with one another about school and classes. When an elderly man next to me finally broke the segregation between the new and old volunteers, I breathed a sigh of relief; “Are you girls in college?” he inquired friendlily. We quickly nodded yes, pleased to be invited into the conversation. The man across the table from us revealed that he had been volunteering every Monday for the last year and a half. I listened as Joy discussed the hassles of childcare. The older man beside me quizzed me on the songs pouring from the radio, and told me about the different places he had lived and seen throughout his lifetime. Within an hour of hacking the heads off of broccoli, we had succeeded in both filling the immense containers as well as becoming a part of Project Angel Heart’s unique and tightly knit community.

As we were closing in on our last hour of volunteering, my mind began to wander. I had been chopping mushrooms for so long that my hands knew what to do on their own. I stared at the crates of vegetables, wondering where it would end up and whom it would feed. How would this one mushroom go on to improve someone’s life? What would that person go on to do once they have their energy back? It’s amazing how positively one meal can affect someone.
The vegetables had been chopped, the knives washed, and the floors mopped; it was time for us to leave. Now that I had become so comfortable with what I was doing and the people I had met, I didn’t want to abandon it. It had never been so difficult for me to fit in with other volunteers, and I didn’t want to give up all my work so quickly! I had always assumed that volunteers shared the common desire to want change, and this alone would connect us. What I didn’t realize was that there were so many different reasons and motives to volunteer at all. The people I met in that kitchen had their own busy lives with their own worries and their own struggles. When I learned about them individually, I appreciated even more why they were there. Joy had children to look after and to feed, and yet she was here working for an organization that makes a difference in her community even if she didn’t get paid as much as a private company could offer her. She sacrificed money to work for Project Angel Heart. People like Joy are everywhere, forgoing their own success to have a positive impact on their community. To me, this is an inspiration. The hours of seemingly repetitive and monotonous chopping suddenly seem worth this realization that truly caring people are everywhere, doing truly amazing things for their peers and society.