Wheels for Humanity

Grading:
Ease of Sign Up: 3/5
Physicality: 4/5
Fun Factor: 1/5

Info:
Address: 12750 Raymar St. Unit 4, North Hollywood, CA 91605
Phone: (818) 255-0100
Hours:Monday-Friday 9:00am-5:00pm
Saturday 9:00am-2:00pm
Wheels for Humanity

Time Spent:
9:00am-12:00pm February 26th, 2009

Cut the Crap:

Wheels for Humanity, is a non-profit organization that takes all types of wheel chairs and refurbishes them for use in third world countries. They make about 15 shipments a year. Each of these shipments is a large container filled with several hundred chairs. They are currently developing their own wheelchair that can be produced inexpensively for use overseas.

Personal Experience:

We started by showing up on Tuesday ready to volunteer after confirming with their front office. When we showed up Justin went to the restroom to go wash off his hands because he rode his bike to the shop. Immediately Justin started getting yelled at by people in the office and told he wasn't allowed to be in there. They got more mad and yelled at him to get out. Then we heard from the side office "what are these kids doing here?" Once they realized that we were here to volunteer and not doing court ordered community service, they came in a personally apologized to us. Apparently they had a tough morning with the supervisor's car being broken into, and cell phones around the office being stolen.

Once everything was straightened out, Michael, the Operations Manager, took us on a tour and showed us what the organization was all about. He introduced us to David who was in charge of the volunteers and community service and we made an appointment to come in and help out Thursday.
The organization is for a good cause, however, the work is a bit tedious, like many of the other warehouse type volunteering jobs we have done so far. We spent the morning taking apart basic wheelchairs, cleaning and re greasing the bearings, cleaning off the rust and dirt, and putting the chairs back together. The shop was nice, with all the tools you need to repair the chairs. Zach and I were probably annoying some of the people doing time, with our somewhat inappropriate situational humor. The people where helpful, and gave us tips on getting things done faster. After hearing an ad on the radio telling the listener how with a pill you can have an erection that lasts hours, we also joked about how horrible that would actually be. That was by far the highlight of the day.

All in all, the organization is for a good cause and some of the people doing community service were nice. It's unfortunate that the supervisors weren't very polite, and treated volunteers like criminals. They never came into the shop to mingle with the workers like we had experienced while volunteering at other places. If you really enjoy dismantling things, or really enjoy abuse I would highly recommend volunteering at Wheels for Humanity. All in all our experience greasing nuts was not as pleasurable as you think it would be.

Operation Gratitude

Grading:

Ease of Sign up (5 being easiest)
5/5 (Zach) 5/5 (Justin)
Physicality (0 being no physical labor)
3/5 (Zach) 2/5 (Justin)
Fun Factor: 3/5

Info:
Address: 17330 Victory Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406
Phone: No Phone Available
Hours: Monday & Friday: 9AM - 4PM
Tuesday - Thursday: 12PM - 4PM
Saturday & Sunday 9AM - 4PM
http://www.opgratitude.com/

Time Spent:
9AM - 1:00PM February 13th, 2009

Cut The Crap:
Operation Gratitude is a great organization that works out of the Van Nuys National Guard Armory and sends out care packages to troops in conflict zones overseas. The organization has already sent out 320,000 they all include nice little gifts along with personal letters from caring people. There are many ways one can help out. You can help put the packages together, assist with labeling or by writing letters. There is no sign up process or lengthy set of paperwork to fill out before you can start helping. For more info on how you can get involved visit Operation Gratitude.

Operation Gratitude – Zach's Experience
When I arrived, Justin and I met up with the director of volunteering named Charlie. He was very friendly and told us real simple instructions. Take out these five hour energy drinks from the care packages and then separate all the contents. So pretty much they already had these packages put together but they were completely ruined by these stupid energy drinks. We are talking tens of thousands. Turns out they burst in transit and got all over many of the other contents of the care packages. They would soon become the bane of my existence. First of all, why are we giving this type of crap to our soldiers overseas? It is like poison. It is bad for you and gets you all tweaked out. Is this what we want to give our guys out on patrol. These were really tiny bottles… but somehow they managed to squeeze in enough warning information you would think they inscribed the Aeneid on the side. Oh well, all I can say is, I am glad that we were taking that garbage out of their care packages.

Justin and I were examples of efficiency. We hauled ass and separated things faster then anyone had ever done in the place. Then after a couple hours rolled in “Mr. American Flag Suspenders Guy.” Operation Gratitude…More like Operation Attitude. To tell you the truth I didn’t even mind working with the guy who was doing community service for the hate crime he committed…but “Mr. American Flag Suspenders Guy,” to be henceforth known as, MAFSG was terrible. Instead of being friendly and introducing himself to us, like everyone else had done, he came over and immediately told us we were doing everything the wrong way. However, he never told us his correct way of doing things. Everyone else was telling us what a good job we were doing. I hate saying anything bad about a community service organization but I can’t let this go. We went to Operation Gratitude with the best of intentions and myopic pseudo Grinch was constantly over our shoulders and grabbing things from us instead of just letting us get work done. It truly seemed like this was his way of hazing us. Luckily he was only there for about two hours. In my opinion it was two hours too long. It got better after that.

One of the coolest aspects of the whole program is the personal notes that go along with every package. At the armory when I was walking around there were boxes and boxes full of handwritten notes from adults and school children. If I were to go back and help out I feel that is what I would want to help with. All the letters need to be screened and put in each of the care packages. They need to be screened because sometimes people write things that are NSFW. The woman who was working on the notes that day told me a colorful story about one of the most touching notes she had ever read. She spoke of how the writer expressed their thanks for everything the soldier was doing for the country…It ended with the woman offering to make a personal dinner for the soldier and offering to make a special “desert,” for them when they got back stateside. Unfortunately that note got tossed. I mean what better way to express your love for our country. In my opinion, it is much better then wearing American flag suspenders.

Operation Gratitude – Justin's Experience
Project gratitude, an organization set up to send care packages to soldiers, unfortunately had a mishap with the 5hr energy drink in the packages exploding on the ride from D.C. On this day everyone was sorting through each care bag and sorting all the items of the bags where the 5hr energy hadn't exploded. The bags that were tainted with a 5hr energy that didn't make the trip were put to the side and any items that weren't ruined were cleaned and sorted.

We walked in and met Charlie who welcomed us and put us to work. He was really nice and even said we could take some 5hr energies if we wanted, since they weren't sending them out in fear they would explode again. So after the kid who was also at our table helping decided to go for one, I figured why not? WORST IDEA EVER! On a side note, the 5 hr energy is supposed to not have a crash. Turns out they are right, you feel like absolute crap for 5 hrs then at about the five hour mark you finally start feeling good again. So, drudged out on caffeine and shaking like I had Parkinson's I continued my work and our group flew through boxes, sorting away like there was no tomorrow. In between sorting we were constantly fending off our Mr. Patriotic supervisor who was a bit trigger happy on taking or sorted boxes kept coming by and telling us we were inefficient. He was a nice guy and did constantly thank us for our work, we just felt like we were by far the most efficient group and it just gave us what we needed to work that much faster.

Project Gratitude is a great cause, but unfortunately like most other volunteer work there are day where you are really busy and have many people to talk to and days that feel like you are sitting on an assembly line doing a repetitive motion for hours and hours. This was one of the later days. I'm looking forward to helping them out for their big shipment preparation in early April when there should be many more little projects to help out. It was still fun to hang out, and the work wasn't that physically demanding. So if you have a group of friends and want to hang out and talk while helping out a good cause, give it a shot, but you might want to skip on the 5hr energy shot!

Project Angel Food

Grading
Ease Sign of Sign up
4/5
Physicality (0 being no physical labor)
2/5
Fun Factor
4/5

Info:
Address: 922 Vine Street, Los Angeles, CA 90038-2702
Phone: 323.845.1816
Hours: 8AM - 5PM
http://www.angelfood.org


Time Spent
8AM - 1:30PM February 5th, 2009
Pictures

Cut the crap:
Project Angel Food is a volunteer organization geared towards providing meals for those who are home bound due to illness and unable to prepare meals for themselves. It was originally set up to care for HIV/AIDS patients but now cares for people with Cancer and other debilitating diseases. It was started in 1989 and since it’s conception, has prepared and delivered more then 3.4 MILLION meals. To find out more about Project Angel Food click on the link.


Personal Experience:
We arrived at 8 in the morning for a quick orientation from Vesna, the volunteer services manager, about Project Angel Food’s purpose and explanation of proper food handling. It included a pretty funny video that was not nearly as bad as we thought it would be. With the orientation out of the way we got killer lunch lady hairnets, latex gloves and aprons. In the kitchen we met up with Juan, the head chef of the day who was in charge of making the day’s meal happen. There were at least 12 other volunteers already helping out with meal preparation. We were thrown right into the mix and started throwing bags of frozen veggies in metal containers for the vegetable dish. Everyone who was working was very friendly and eager to help us get our bearings. In a short amount of time we learned the layout of the kitchen and where everything was kept.

After we finished up the veggies we split up. Justin went on to the meal assembly where the meals were packaged. He got to work with two cute girls who did not want to talk to him. Zach went on to slice and peel up onions with a gentleman who was all too eager to talk. Then it was off to cutting and peeling carrots. Everyone was easy going and they let us know we could take breaks whenever we wanted. All they ask is that you wash up before you get back to work. We both did a lot of other little tasks to help out and then it was on to dicing up all the onions for the next day’s meal. Sitting there crying next to each other was quite the bonding experience. It should be noted if we wanted to do something else we could have just asked. If there is anyone who does not feel comfortable doing a specific task they can always ask to do another.

With the day’s meals completed and the next day’s outgoing meal prepared we were ready for lunch. It should be added that the chefs volunteer as well. The chef who was volunteering the day we were there was previously voted best chef of the country. Our meal was delicious. He made us amazing lemonade. All in all it was a great experience.