Steph was shining bright under the sun and with his GoodGym T-shirt on when I reached the Salvation Army around 3:59 pm thinking I was a bit early. But Steph was there for quite some time.

Strong hands

Emma, you've got the strongest man for the job - Marvin, City Harvest Volunteer

Soon other Foodbank volunteers arrived. I recognized most of them. The van from City Harvest arrived there as well. We all were waiting for Emma to arrive and open the doors. Then we started picking up the crates from the van. Steph was doing double duty as he picked two crates at a time. Marvin was impressed and gave us a few packs of Bailey's chocolates.

Teabags for life!

As I was sorting out the crisps/savories from sweet ones, Steph came with a bag of Tetley Tbags with a label reading 1100 bags. Emma asked us to put in 20 tea bags per pack. Steph and I were meticulously counting the teabags and making the packs. JinMery, an Ealing soup kitchen volunteer, asked us for the preferred style of cuppa as she was putting the kettle on.

With milk and 2 sugars please - Steph

We had our teas, while we are bagging the teabags. Then we made snack bags that consists of fruits, protein bars, crisp, and a drink. We had to make 80 of them.

How many years?

Claire was passing Baileys chocolate which we got earlier. As it is volunteering week, Emma gave every volunteer a sheet and asked us to write how many years we've been volunteering in our life. This took many of us in the path down memory lane. Steph has been volunteering for a decade, where I pretty much started my journey with GoodGym. After taking a photo, we went back to sorting and moving stuff.

What's for dinner?

Snacks, grocery bags, and pretty much all sorting is done and we were all waiting for the dinner to arrive.

Is it vegetable curry or Vegetarian curry - Matt

What we got today was aromatic Basmati rice and lentil curry.

Time to pass the baton

It was 6 pm, and we started setting up the table to let the clients in. Sevan came running and arrived a bit early. Sevan and I took the desk job and started serving the food, where Steph joined Matt for the crowd control. Marvin came back to help in the Soup kitchen. So I left my role to him and Kash arrived on time as well. Kash Joined Steph while I was leaving. Read more on part 2