Today we
worked with two great organizations. In the morning we volunteered with Arc of
Greater New Orleans. Arc is a recycling center that recycles used Mardi Gras
beads. We learned that Mardi Gras is a very wasteful holiday. Each year over 20
millions pounds of beads are imported to New Orleans. The majority of these
beads are simply thrown away and end up in a landfill. Thus, Arc sorts the
Mardi Gras beads and then re-sells them to be reused next year.
Arc also provides support and critical services to area children or adults with
intellectual disabilities and their families. For children, Arc provides
family service coordination, early intervention services and a child care
facility. For adults, Arc provides daily activities at Arc centers, personal care
and supported living services for those adults who want to live independently
and employment opportunities for those who wish to work. This was really
awesome how Arc was serving the NOLA through recycling and helping people with
intellectual disabilities. At Arc we sorted huge bins of these Mardi Gras beads
into six distinctive categories. Then we bagged these beads to be resold next
year during Mardi Gras.
For
the second half of the day, we worked with Second Harvest food bank. Second
Harvest provides critical food for people living with food insecurities in New
Orleans. At Second Harvest we worked on a conveyor belt to package food that
would then be sent to different community partners. Basically, one group would
load food onto the conveyor belt while the other group would put the food into
at the ends of the conveyor belt.
Overall,
today was a great day. We got to work with two organizations that were serving
their communities in exactly the ways the community needed them most. One funny
story was today was that one of the volunteers at Arc thought we would be
sorting beets (the vegetable) instead of beads. They voiced this question out
loud and it was hilarious.
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| Leaving the volunteer spirit at Second Harvest. |
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