Houston 2 - Health (2)

Our second volunteer day in Houston began with some homemade pancakes and pan-fried bacon!  We fought a little traffic on our drive to Bay Area Turning Point, a confidential shelter for men, women, and children of domestic violence and sexual assault.

After arriving at Turning Point headquarters, we had a quick introduction with the staff then Mr. Robert directed us to the shelter where we spent our day.  Most of our service consisted of organizing the food pantry within the shelter.  So many donations to the shelter has led to an overwhelming clutter in the food pantry—not a bad problem to have at a non-profit.  

Let’s just say we learned from the fuss our mother’s gave us in the past, and organized the space beyond belief.  Much of the organization consisted of going through each canned goods to make sure they were not expired.  Labeling the peanut butter, of all things, proved to be strenuous—butter team rose above the challenge.  Even though we feel like we didn’t accomplish much, the employees were ecstatic about the difference we made in the kitchen and pantry.  For an organization that relies solely on volunteers that are not regularly available, if at all, the work was pivotal for their day-to-day operations over the coming weeks. 

The rest of the afternoon brought an appreciated trip to the beaches of Galveston.  Once we applied the recommended SPF 70 sunscreen and waited the minimum thirty minutes after eating lunch, we enjoyed a few moments of fun in the sun! We attempted to bring our famous Mizzou Made style of football, but let’s just say it wasn’t as pretty.  Tanning, while relaxing, only seemed to burn us in the end.  We wrapped up our afternoon with a walk along the shore which introduced many of us to our first experience with a jellyfish—which many of our more curious members decided to poke out of curiosity.  We ended the day with a well-prepared family dinner, with some help and encouragement from the local church.  Let’s just say, according to them, our cooking would make our mother’s proud!