Welcome to the L.A. Karma Project

THE LA KARMA PROJECT BLOG IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION. CHECK BACK SOON FOR OUR NEW LOOK! Welcome, Willkommen, Bruchim Ha'Baim, Aloha, Benvenuto, Marhaban, and Bienvenido. We have decided to go out and put some of our free time to good use by volunteering around the L.A. area. We will be writing about our experiences on this website. We hope bring awareness to some of these amazing opportunities and hopefully get more people involved in volunteering and serving others. We have also created a Facebook group, L.A. Karma Project, which we encourage you to join. We will be posting events to get groups together and help out at some of the various organizations. If you have any suggestions of places to volunteer at, be sure to let us know. Also, if you have been to any of the places we have already written about, please leave a comment to let others know about your opinion. Thanks for checking out the site!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

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.

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