ASB Cincinnati: Keepin' it straight

(DISCLAIMER: first paragraph should be read in a British accent and the rest in a southern accent.)

Today we went to the food distribution warehouse. We LOVED it! It was neat to see all the food that is available to agencies. We made power packs (packs of food for children over the weekend) for over 540 children! We learned about how the warehouse has rules for giving food out to agencies, and that Ohio produce can only go to Ohio agencies. Charles and Julie got to bail cardboard with some hydraulic machinery. Every power pack had two chocolate milks, three entrees of chili or stew, three snacks (fruit and pudding), and two containers of cereal. For some children on this program, this is the only food they receive for the whole weekend. It was really fun and we were proud to be useful.

The second place we went was Our Daily Bread. Once we found it, we learned that there was a miscommunication and the kids who we thought we would be helping were actually on spring break. Instead, we just helped them sort some stuff in their basement, and cleaned the children's playroom. Tyler, the director, gave us a tour of the building and told us all about their meal program during the morning. He also explained how Our Daily Bread became an organization in the Cincinnati community 27 years ago. It started under a woman named Cookie, who just wanted to be someone to help (like us!). She was moved to start the organization after seeing a man eat out of the garbage. Now Our Daily Bread serves over 500 meals a day. We sorted a lot of mugs and boxes of supplies in the basement, and saw some pretty awesome old mugs! Even though we didn't do what we thought we'd be doing, we really enjoyed Our Daily Bread. They showed us their murals outside which had been painted by area high schools, and as a parting gift, gave us greeting cards with pictures of the murals.

For dinner we tried Skyline Chili—Cincinnati's famous chili place. Jaime got a Coney dog and was a happy camper. Charles was silent in happiness as he scarfed down his chili. It was very good on spaghetti with cheese on top, and we could taste a little cinnamon in it, too!

We took an impromptu tour of Xavier University, which is a private school a little outside of the city. It was really fancy and all the buildings looked brand new. But we'd never trade it in for Ol' Mizzou! On the way home we stopped for ice cream at United Dairy Farmers, the local gas station/ice cream parlor. It was delish, but not as good as Graeters.