Service To Others

The People's Resource Center in Wheaton mission is simple, their goal is to be able to be "Meeting our community's needs - neighbor to neighbor". Last year the People's Resource Center distributed 2.6 million pounds of food in the DuPage county area including over 9,000 families. Since 1975, they have been bringing neighbors together to respond to hunger and poverty. The People's Resource Center provides other services such as food pantry, clothes closet, social services, and job assistance, among others. For example, their clothes closet provided 1,635 households with clothing for their family and in addition, 158 people found jobs through their services.

On March 25 from 4:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., I served at the People's Resource Center food pantry in Wheaton. I, along with my fellow volunteers/workers were able to help out with handing out food to the families as well as packaging the food and placing them on the shelves. I greeted the families as they passed by and helped them grab their food. As I helped out these families, they were very grateful and it would often bring a smile to their faces. They would say thank you and I would move on to the next people in line. Even though I wasn't the one that provided these foods, I felt proud that I was able to bring happiness to these families just by handing them out.

The feeling of giving one of the basic necessities of life to these families in need is something that I would definitely want to experience again. I am curious about how other food pantries are around the country. Depending on where it is, they might have a different way of distributing food because of their location. I am also curious to see if there are any other facilities such as food pantries around the world that help those in need. All in all, I learned that not every family out there is as fortunate as the rest of us. Some can't even afford the basic foods to keep a family alive. By doing this service I was able to experience hands on how our resource centers work and how they are able to help so many people in need.