Community Engagement

I am a big believer in community engagement and giving back. It starts with signing up for a board, volunteering a bar shift or helping with hot lunch at school. I want to teach my kids it’s important to make time for these things. Yes, as annoying as it might seem at times, many hands make light work. And if everyone had the same attitude, our long term volunteers wouldn’t be so burned out.

A few years ago parents would actually cook the meals at home, come to school and assembly them and offer foods like taco in a bag, pizza, subs and lasagna and much more. These days we order from local restaurants, take the food to the school and hand it out. It takes 45 min tops. And yet, sign up with dwindling. We can’t even get parents to commit to 45 min once a week. Or once a month if you consider taking turns. So why is that?

I had this conversation with a friend and she recently read an article by Anne Helen Peterson on “How Millennials became the burnout generation“. The article takes a historical look at how previous generations have set up our generation to be burnt out and run dry.

Yet here I am, telling you, together we can do it! If we all pitched in, it wouldn’t be so hard on any of us! We have 200 families with kids in the school. Imagine each family taking one turn. We would have enough volunteers to run hot lunches for almost 5 (!!) years if you consider school breaks and a summer off.

While I understand it takes two incomes in todays world to make ends meet, a lot of work places would support you spending a lunch hour helping, or taking 45 min off to volunteer for a good cause. Please consider taking part in the hot lunch program! We cooked hot dogs earlier this week, made a little video and show you how easy it can be! And FUN! Check the video out on our Instagram page! JOIN US! We would love to have you on our team and be a valued member!