UIUC Week Three

Week three has come and gone!!  My third week at UIUC had me working at the Florida Avenue Residence Dining Hall and specifically with the Meals on Wheels operation there.  Meals on Wheels is an organization that provides meals for those who are unable to provide for themselves (predominately the elderly).  In fact, the organization's vision is to end senior hunger by 2020.  Their program includes thousands of locations that span across the United States and they serve over one million meals a day.  Another remarkable fact about MOW is that their "staff" consists of mainly volunteers.  UIUC is one of the country's MOW locations and the staff at FAR works so hard to make sure that they are providing quality meals for their customers.  It's FAR's job to develop a menu, prepare cold lunch bags and hot lunch trays for every customer; and supper sacks when requested.  Once these meals are prepared and organized, volunteer drivers come to FAR, pick up the meals, and delivery them directly to the elderly's homes. 

I thoroughly enjoyed working with the MOW operation last week.  It was great to learn more about the organization and see how UIUC contributes.  But most of all, I loved that I was able to help out and contribute to this organization.  

The route bags with ice packs and lunch/supper bags inside.
Each route also has a folder w/ customer info. and driving
directions.

Each morning was fairly similar.  My mornings involved filling brown paper bags with milk, salad, dessert, a slice of bread, and butter.  The majority of the meals are the same, but there are a few customers who suffer from illnesses/conditions that require them to have a modified meal.  FAR accommodates these customers by providing some alternatives which I think is great.  Also, some customers pay extra to receive a supper sack which includes a soup, sandwich, and a piece of fresh fruit.  Once all of the lunch bags and supper sacks were filled and closed, they needed to be sorted into routing cooler bags.  FAR's operation includes nine different routes so all of the meals are sorted accordingly.  Once all of the bags were sorted, it was time to prepare the hot meals.  The MOW menu was set up so that leftovers from dinner the night before could be used for the hot meals, but sometimes the cooks would have to make entirely new menu items specifically for MOW.  Also, some of the modified meals required a healthier entrée, so the cooks would provide options such as brown rice and lightly seasoned chicken breast.  Making the hot trays was pretty fun.  All of the hot food was in a buffet line, and we basically formed an assembly line, with each person in charge of scooping a particular food, putting lids on the trays, or sorting the trays into the correct route's bag.  By the middle of the week we were assembling the trays like a well-oiled machine.  

This is where we assembled the hot trays.  The food hadn't
come out yet...

After all of the volunteer drivers picked up their routes, I helped with preparing the next day's meals.  This meant making and packaging salads, packaging desserts, and putting labels on bags and lids.  Then all of the empty bags were set up on tables for the next morning.  The work wasn't necessarily challenging, but it sure was time consuming!

On Thursday some staff members had the day off, so I was working with people who had never helped with MOW before.  It ended up testing my leadership skills because these employees were looking to me to take charge of the operation and let them know what needed to be done.  I'm glad to report that we all ended up doing great and everything went smoothly.  

 

Just a fraction of the bags that are set up the night before to make
mornings a little easier.

Other randoms from the week:

 

1) I got to make hummus.  It was fun to use the huge food processing machine, but other than that the process was messy and I'm not sure that it turned out so great.  Kind of embarrassing when you consider the fact that making hummus is basically throwing all of the ingredients into a bowl and turning on a machine to do the rest...  Oh well, it was a learning experience, right?

Don't tell Jamba Juice that the blender wasn't a VitaMix!

2) I was able to create a smoothie for one of the summer campers that has a special diet.  Rachel (the other UIUC student intern) and I were given the ingredients and a blender and left to work our magic.  I used to work at Jamba Juice, so I felt quite confident with my smoothie making capabilities.  The ingredients weren't all that fun, but they made for an extremely healthy smoothie.  They were filtered water, organic bananas, organic frozen berries, organic kale, and organic peanut butter.  It ended up being nutritious and delicious!

 

 

Up close and personal.  It tasted better than it looks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know last week was only my third week, but this internship has already taught me so much! I'm learning how to apply knowledge that I learned in classes to real life, in the field situations.  And more importantly, I'm learning how to use my strengths in a professional, business atmosphere; some strengths I wasn't even aware that I had! And I should add that it's helping me work on my weaknesses as well.  Those can't be forgotten!  Anyways, I am looking forward to week four and every week after that! Hope everyone's Monday is going well.  Until next time...