Volunteering Experience
charity sale
the bags
Ethan Lin│Iris Chang│Celine Chen│Kai Shen│Ray Yu│Yvette Chang│Ray Wu
Hao Cheng Yang│Alan Lee│Hans Chiang
Ethan Lin
When joining voluntary activities, I realized that volunteers work really hard to help everyone and sacrifice their lives to help people in need. Although they do not get paid when volunteer, they still pay great attention to their own work. All they think about is how to make the elders happy and satisfied. I also found that their work was not easy. Aside from repacking the bread mountain, there were boxes of biscuits to repack and a box of snap beans waiting for them to peel the fibers off. I feel exhausted when I think about it!
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Iris Chang
Through the volunteering on September 21st, I suddenly realized that the volunteers have tons of work to do every day. They need to cook, unpack and repack bread, etc. They always have a lot on their plate. This time, we volunteered to unpack and repack bread, and deliver the bread that we packed to the Food Plant Community Fridge. I know that packing bread, and peeling off snap bean fibers are easy jobs to the volunteers, but it is quite difficult to all of us. We were exhausted by the end of the day, and we couldn’t imagine how those volunteers survived after the work. That was a rare opportunity for us to experience what voluntary service was like, and we have really learned a lot!
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Celine Chen
Through the volunteering, I felt the joy of being a volunteer, and how volunteers feel when helping others. In the activities, we unpackaged and repacked bread, took out fibers from snap beans, divided cookies and coffee powder into different bags, and pushed a cart to deliver bread to the Food Plant Community Fridge, etc. What impressed me the most among those activities are repacking bread and taking out fibers from snap beans. We were shocked when we saw tons and tons of bread passing to our table and waiting for us to unpack and repack. Even though we were tired, we still wanted to finish the assigned task because helping others made us happy. Surprisingly, none of us complained. We were all willing to help. Picking out fibers from snap beans was another interesting task. There are many small details we need to be aware of when picking out the fibers. Most importantly, I’ve learned that when peeling off the fibers, we had to make sure we peeled off both sides of the snap beans! This activity is truly a hard-won experience to me!
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Kai Shen
After the interview in October, we knew that there are many volunteers helping the Nanjichang Community. In order to have a thorough understanding to the services the borough chief has established, we volunteered some of the services. At the beginning, we all thought it was an easy mission. However, after that, we all felt that it was such a tough job, and we were surprised that the tasks they assigned us are usually done by three people only. We first put on plastic gloves and mask on, and then, we needed to remove the plastic bags of all the bread. We separated into two groups. First group put two loaves of bread in a plastic bag, and the second group wrapped up the plastic bags, so that the bread wouldn’t fall out. After that, we had another job which is to put two bags of cookies and a bag of coffee into a bigger bag as a set. Then, we packed 15 sets in one box. The final job for my group is to count the number of the gift bags. That was even harder because we needed to be very focus, otherwise, we would miscount or forget the number we were counting. Gladly, we finished all our jobs. The bread was also delivered and stored in the Food Plant Community Fridge for people in need.
After this interesting experience, I noticed that a common bread usually comes from a complex story. There are many people who put effort on it. This was an activity that touched me significantly. I hope everyone can appreciate food and do not waste food because there are many people like those in Nanjichang who are struggling for food and life. I also want to show my gratitude to the borough chief, Fang Ho-sheng. He made me realized that I am such a lucky person. I do not need to worry about food nor money. I am glad that I can go to school every day and get what I want easily.
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Ray Yu
On a day of December, we went to Nanjichang for voluntary services. We discovered that, actually, preparing food for the eldes, sorting out all kinds of bread to put into the Food Plant Community Fridge, and distributing supplies are not random tasks that can be finished quickly.
First of all, we put bread in plastic bags and made sure that every bag had nearly the same amount of bread. Then, we stuck labels of expiration dates on the bags, and put them in boxes which were going to be sent to the community fridge by cart. Next, we were assigned to peel off fibers of snap beans. Meanwhile, another group was packing supplies. Everyone worked together to put bags of instant coffee and crackers in bags, put them in boxes and count the number of bags we packed in total.
I learned many things in the volunteering this time. I learned that there are many people need help, so we should do as much as we can.
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Yvette Chang
Through the interview last time, we knew there are voluntary services for the residents living in Nanjichang Public Housing. In order to let us know how hard those volunteers’ duties are, and the feeling of helping others. Teachers arranged a time with the borough chief and took us to Nanjichang Public Housing for volunteering.
We went to Nanjichang in the afternoon of December 21th. When we arrived at Zhongcin Village, we saw those volunteers had already started to help. There were so many bags of bread on the table which made us confused about what to do. Those volunteers were preparing bread for the Food Plant Community Fridge. When we saw this, the teachers told us to help immediately. After volunteers taught us what to do, and how to do, we started our first volunteering. Some people unpacked the bread, some put bread in new bags, and others wrapped the bags. What about me? I was helping to paste the expiration date labels. While we were packing, we heard a volunteer calling us for help. Therefore, we separated into two groups. One group continued to pack the bread, and another group help to peel fibers from snap beans in another table. This seemed easy, but I figured out we had to be very careful or else the elders couldn’t digest the beans that had too many fibers.
After being a volunteer, I truly believe helping others is the happiest thing ever.
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Ray Wu
On December 21th, a cold day in the winter, we walked in Nanjichang. We brought second-hand books for them and hoped that tiny little kindness could make their lives slightly better. It just like delivering coal in the cool snow.
We were there again which was a bit familiar and at the same time unfamiliar to us. We saw the shabby buildings we visited last time, but this time we had a different purpose to our visit. We were going to volunteer in Nanjichang which was my first volunteering experience, and it has changed my way of seeing volunteers. I’m a child that grew up in the city. I never knew what the poor was like until this day which gave me a different feeling.
Watching baskets of bread reminded me of the food sharing fridge which was full of bread. I was curious about the story behind. Today, we finally revealed how the voluntary services works! There were about five big bags of bread on the table in Nanjichang Happyland at first. We followed the process of opening the original packagings of the bread, put the bread into new bags, packed them, and attach labels. This repeated process was ended until all the bread were packed. We were lucky that we had ten people to help. Generally, there are only two volunteers to help, and that’s exhausting! While we were working on the bread, there were other duties, such as washing vegetables and rice before the dinner began. However, there are usually only a few people doing these jobs. The volunteers do the same jobs day by day. This is not only exhausting, boring, it also made me wonder how they have their social lives.
After completing those tasks, I noticed that we are so relaxing in our daily life! It also reminded us that the fish should be aware of the water while it's in the river. After that, I will definitely think before wasting things, and buy what I need. I should make all the decisions wisely.
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Hao Cheng Yang
In addition to studying and researching about Nanjichang, the teacher also arranged us to be volunteers in Nanjichang, so we can help the elders in Zhongcin Village. The work we had to do included packing bread and organizing donations. First, we listened to other volunteers’ instruction on how to pack bread. Then, we started to pack. We had to take off the old wraps, repack the bread, and attach labels with expiration dates. When we were organizing the donations, we needed to open a bag and put in a bag of coffee powder with two packs of cookies in it. When we finished the work, we sent the bread we just packed to the Food Plant Community Fridge. After volunteering, I felt very happy because I can help a lot of people. Through this experience, I found out that although we are living in the wealthiest place in Taiwan, there are still so many elders need help.
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Alan Lee
From the interview with the borough chief of Nanjichang, we learned about the voluntary services in Zhongcin Village and understood the hard work of volunteers. Therefore, our teachers invited us to experience some of the voluntary services in Nanjichang. On an afternoon of December, we began our journey. As soon as we arrived at Nanjichang Happyland, we saw that the volunteers had already redistributed and packed some bread. Everyone was assigned a job. Some people removed the plastic packaging, some people loaded the bread, and others were helping to stick the expiration date labels. Because we separated the jobs efficiently, we quickly packed all the bread and prepared to put it in the community fridge. After this experience, I completely agree to the saying, “It is more happy to give than to accept.” Helping others is really an enjoyable matter.
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Hans Chiang
Today, my teammates and I went to Nanjichang to be one-day volunteers. We have been to Nanjichang before, and we all knew a little about it. However, we were still in a mood of excitement this time.
The residents in Nanjichang are mostly elders, so they need many people to help them. On the day of volunteering, we did many things. First, we packed the bread from charities. It seemed to be easy, but in fact, we needed to open the bags of the bread, then, put it in different bags base on the size. Lastly, we needed to tie the bags with two knots and count the number of all the bags. We also needed to put other donations into bags. First, we needed to open some empty boxes, and put bags of cookies and bags of instant coffee powder into reusable shopping bags. When we finished, we still needed to recycle the boxes that we had opened.
