Yesterday my workgroup spent the day at a local non-profit food bank distributor called Northwest Harvest. We went to one of their packaging facilities in Kent, where we bagged food items for elementary school kids.

The kids are part of a program where the teachers give them a bag of food on Fridays to take home with them, over the weekends. We learned that one in four kids in Washington live with families that don’t have enough food.

Picture 16 Starbucks project managers around an assembly line, hopped-up on caffeine and cold, in the unheated warehouse. We managed to package 2,400 bags in about four hours; each bag is a day’s worth of food for a kid.

It’s strange to hold a small bag and think that’s food for one child, for a day. They got a small can of either chicken soup or beef ravioli, a can of mixed vegetables or corn, a fruit cup or granola bar, a box of milk, juice, and a freeze-dried macaroni and cheese.

Categories: Diary

Tags: DPchallenge, Food, Food bank, Kent, Northwest Harvest, postaday, Starbucks, Washington