Wednesday Northwest Harvest: Sarah

Sarah Carter
Blog Wednesday

The group I am in is working with Northwest Harvest. We are doing what feels like a whole bunch of odd jobs. On Monday we worked in the cherry fields most of the day. I learned when picking those cherries I could not pick enough cherries in a day to feed myself let alone a family and pay for the other basics for living, like a house. It was especially difficult to pick cherries which where quality. Jaclyn, our orchard mom, told us that some buyers or orchard owners will pick through the buckets you bring in and determine if you are even going to get paid for that bunch of cherries you picked. When picking cherries, though it was hard work, it was hard to see the true work we where doing or how we could possibly be helping anyone. Working with Northwest Harvest is a great experience for me because I have only ever worked on the house sites on the reservation where I could see the people I was helping and how they reacted to our presence there. This site is more of a challenge, it helps me to work on the faith element of my religion. It is much more difficult to do a task to do what seems like minor tasks and hope it truly impacts the larger community. Then on Tuesday our group was able to work at OIC, which is the largest food bank in Yakima. There we where able to actually put a face to the people we where helping. We Passed out food and helped people carry the food to their cars. There we served about 275 people. When Lisa, our head supervisor at Northwest Harvest, did the math for us, it was more like 650 people we where serving. Because it was 275 people picking up food for their families and the average family size is 4 to 5 people. It was very humbling to see people of every size, shape, color, age, and gender. And how they only took the food they needed for the time being. Overall this mission has been the most difficult mission yet. I have had to make new friends because I didn’t know very many people going on this week. I have had to do just as much annual labor as previous years if not more. And most of all I have had to have faith that the “odd jobs” are all going to affect someone’s life.

P.S. I got to be up on top of a semi trailer to give it a good wash. =)