October Blog

October: 5 hours of community service

    The month of October was a busy one that went by in the blink of an eye! This month, I participated in a food drive with Vineyard Church in Kenner Louisiana. When I first arrived, I was a bit confused because I saw an incredibly long line of cars that I initially thought was the result of an accident. The closer I got toVineyard Church the more it became clear to me that the line of about 350 cars I passed were all people waiting for the food drive. 

    There were two groups of volunteers; the main group focused on bagging the groceries and the smaller group, which I was a part of, moved pallets of groceries from the trucks to the main group. The manual labor was grueling; I felt myself getting extremely tired after a couple of hours of work. I was in charge of managing the pallet jack and moving about 50 pallets of groceries from two 18-wheelers. The pastor of Vineyard Church operated the forklift to transport the pallets I brought to him. 

    I was really inspired by how many people were waiting in line for the food drive. Vineyard Church had such an amazing and positive impact on not only the members of their church but also their entire city. Families of all backgrounds were there to give help and receive help. The true sense of community I witnessed has given me inspiration to possibly run a food drive of my own with the help of the mosque that I frequent.

I have attached a couple of videos of the food drive; I hope you enjoy watching them!

- Ashraf Farhoud

Total hours for the semester: 10 hours.






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