This past Saturday I found myself with a table at the Goodyear Swap Meet, ready to talk to passerbys about food banks and hunger issues, as part of their Service to the Community festivities. Since it was Memorial Day weekend, they invited non-profits of all stripes out to engage the community with volunteer opportunities, learning opportunities, fundraising communities, and more. While a bit warm, the weather was nice and a decent crowd turned out to see a parade of motorcycle veterans and a surprisingly good live rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.
I’m a bit of a swap meet buff and yard sale buff; what can I say, getting a smokin’ deal and instant gratification beats eBay any day of the week. Once I scored one of these for $25 which brought me much joy, but I digress. This time around, after enjoying a gigantic coffee flavored ice cream cone for only $2, I was greeted by Kathy, who put together the event for the Swap Meet. She had collected five frozen hams, 90lbs of canned goods and an envelope of cash for our cause, all of which were completely unexpected. Turns out she had done a little preplanning to collect all this for us, and what an awesome surprise it turned out to be. Big props to Kathy and the kind folks at the Goodyear Swap Meet!
food bank guy in action (not at a swap meet, but this is the best he's got and you get the idea, so deal with it... and yes I'm aware I'm talking about myself in the third person...)
Now, have you ever tried to fit five hams in a standard size refrigerator freezer before? I’d like to hear your story! Thanks to years honing my Tetris skillz, I got ’em in there safe and sound until I could deliver them to St. Mary’s on Monday morning. In all, 40lbs of ham will help out tremendously, as food banks are always looking for protein sources, since they are oftentimes hard to come by as they are usually perishable, expensive or both.
An aside: Have you ever seen the USS Phoenix submarine veteran’s display, complete with at least a 15 foot scale replica on its own dedicated tow trailer? They were also at the swap meet, about three booths down from me. Unfortunately, it would appear these gentlemen do not have a website, although you can catch a glimse of it here. It literally is mounted to its own tow trailer. While impressive, more amusing was the PA system they have hooked up to it where they played on a continuous repeat a CD of submarine songs, sung by a guy who sounded like a cross between Johnny Cash and Elvis. Songs about the captain, songs about being lonely on a submarine, songs about having torpedos fired at you, I’m telling you this CD had it all and we must have heard it 6 times in a row! Not to mock, but perhaps because of the veterans’ ages, they had their PA blasting under our covered area, cranked to 11. Right next to them, all of 2 feet away, were some ladies from a private Christian school who were none too pleased… good stuff!
food bank guy 