Volunteering through my internship has been my first experience with a service organization that helps the impoverished or under privileged (my past volunteer experiences have been at a local library and at a local museum). I have worked on Saturdays during which time the organization opens its food bank and thrift shop. I have not worked with the food bank unlike my fellow student volunteers but instead the thrift shop. In this section, I have worked both with the clients and behind the scenes.

While volunteering in the clothing section, I also was able to observe the food bank since  the organization’s services relatively share the same area. According to the main coordinator of the center’s operation, who says a prayer prior to the organization’s opening each morning, a family or individual can come to the food bank once a week (Monday, Wednesday, or Saturday) to receive approximately $75.00 worth of food which can total up to roughly $300.00 worth of food a month. His hope is that this will encourage the clients to use the money that they will be saving to be put towards their bills and other expenses. The visible food that I saw in the boxes given to clients was fruit, vegetables, cake, ice cream, candy, crackers, processed meals, and cereals. These were food items that had clearly been donated from local grocery stores. I was surprised to see what clients were getting in the boxes. I think my surprise comes from how the reality differed from my preconceived notions about food banks in general. This organization provides more than just the stereotypical donation of canned foods, soup, and other nonperishable goods, which is the kind of food donations that I myself am familiar with having given in the past through food drives during the holiday seasons.

I observed a degree of power displacement between the clients and the volunteers in the thrift shop because it has a system that regulates how many items are moving with the clients. The thrift shop gives clients the opportunity to pick out items that they themselves want, much like a regular store, but there are limits on the amount of items that people can take each week. Each client possesses a colored card that allows them to take items from the shop. For example, a client (whether a family or an individual) can take up to three books and one dress (which is the equivalent of three shirts) (I have not fully memorized this system).  I generally found that clients worked within these limits with no problem; sometimes, however, people wanted to take more than the system’s limits formally allow. What happens, however, depends upon who’s running the thrift shop at the time. The other volunteers I worked with in the front were much more assertive than I am when dealing with the clients and were more forthright with telling the clients that they had gone over their limit of items. Some clients easily conceded and put back items, some clients were less willing to give up items or to quickly choose what to put back. This made me uncomfortable, and I admit that I did not follow the organization’s system and let people go over their limit sometimes. It was especially difficult when children wanted more toys than they were allowed, and in one instance a child started crying (in this case we let that child keep all of the toys they had wanted). I understand that this system is in place for a very practical reason–there are a limited number of items for people to take and the items have to last to meet the need in case donations run short.

Overall, this organization is much more informal than some of my peers’ organizations seem to be–there’s no orientation for volunteers, few expectations upon clients, and an emphasis on privacy for the clients. Yet, in spite of this informal nature, this organization functions efficiently and people are helped on a weekly basis.