Dallas -- It's A Small World

We kicked off our day bright and early at the Resource Center food bank, the same place we worked yesterday morning. We were immediately put to work helping with the new trucks that came in, unloading product and organizing it on the shelves. We met some new volunteers, and again we were blown away by their friendliness and their dedication. Unfortunately, we were unable to stay long enough to help check out clients like we did yesterday, because we chose to split our time half and half with the hot meals portion of the program. It was very exciting for the group who had already worked there to return, and for the rest of us to get to see everybody in the relaxing setting of eating lunch rather than the rush of the food bank.

Because there was so many of us, we weren't all able to be working at once, which allowed for conversation with the people eating there. Within the first ten minutes, we were once again reminded how small the world really is when we met Al, a man who graduated from the Mizzou Ag school. He also has a daughter running a small restaurant in Columbia, less than two minutes from the campus. Al was absolutely thrilled to see us, and insisted on getting a picture with us all. As we continued to talk with Mark and him, we gained a great deal of insight on the emotional repercussions of contracting HIV/AIDS. Mark and Al were what they referred to as LTS, long time survivors, because they had already lived with the disease for twenty years. Because of this they have a very important role in their community, sharing what they know with those who are newly diagnosed with HIV or AIDS and helping them through the ordeal of getting help and information on fighting the disease. We were very touched by their stories, and about how willing they were to share them with us. We exchanged email addresses with Mark, and will be keeping in contact with him in the future. The group had a great time helping at the hot meals line, and we will be returning tomorrow to volunteer again (and devour a delicious chocolate cake Doris promised to cook for us!)

On our way to Whataburger for lunch, we encountered a homeless man at a stoplight and decided to give him some of our large abundance of snack food. We offered him several different options, but he was adamant about needing cash rather than food donations. Ashley had two dollars that we donated to him. Though we were glad to help him in whatever capacity we could, we were somewhat confused as to why he did not accept our offer of food, but we hope that it went to a good cause.

Because we didn't have any volunteering set up for the rest of the evening, we went back to Katie's house to eat our Whataburger (delicious, very similar to Sonic), relax by the pool, and eat a fabulous dinner of homemade pizza. We're very excited to work with the Resource Center again, and hope to have more to share tomorrow!