It obviously has been a long time since I’ve last posted.  A lot has happened.  I won’t go into any details in this post.  The truth is, I want to write, I like to write, but I’m lazy.  I get little inklings here and there when I’m driving or walking somewhere and think to myself, “Hey, that would be a cool blog post.” but then I never really do anything about it.

Tonight, I forced myself to write a personal story.  My company is doing our annual food drive with Northwest Harvest and my co-worker asked for me to co-captain the fundraising for our team/practice area.  The challenge we were trying to solve for was to 1. gain participation and 2. win at donating the most.  I decided to start a newsletter type of thing listing facts about the org and all the great things they do and why people should donate, but then it hit me.  I’ve always been passionate about food banks and donating to them.  I have a personal tie to food banks, specifically the Missoula Food Bank in Montana.  Sparks went off in my head.  I could tell a personal story and potentially reach out to people that way.

Well, here goes… I’ll post an update on how the food drive goes.  🙂

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I REMEMBER…

My mom was standing in line at the Missoula Food Bank in the dead of winter while my siblings and I sat in our white 1986 Toyota 4-Runner and waited for her.  My younger brother and I played with our dancing breaths and swatted at them in the cold air – my older sister was less than amused.  My mom wore a purple fleece jacket and a chunky navy beanie with the lip folded up.  Her face was bare, but adorned by high cheekbones and chapped lips.  She smelled of frost when she entered the car.  A loaf of generic store brand white bread, a large box of raisins, canned spaghetti sauce, a couple of bags of pasta, and a box of frozen gyros.

I remember reading the word “gyros” and thinking, “What’s that?”

My parents were war refugees from Laos.  They fled to America in 1982 with a few personal belongings and three kids.  They spoke little English and with the time they could go to school, they would prefer to work and earn money to support the family instead.  It seemed counterproductive after a while which is why my dad always stressed the importance of education and getting a good job.

I remember how hard my parents worked.

In the summers, my parents would garden and grow all kinds of vegetables to sell in the local farmer’s market.  Our Fridays in the summer were spent in the garden harvesting lettuce, onions, carrots, corn, radish, sweet peas, green peas, snow peas, and green beans.  I loved harvesting potatoes.  My mom would take a large pitch fork and drive it into the base of the potato plant and when she would push down at the handle, some potatoes would come rolling out of the dirt pile and all you had to do was dig for more.  My least favorite was green beans – the scratchy velvet leaves would tickle my arms and face as I immersed myself in the five feet tall vines.

I remember the smell of dirt in my fingernails.

Saturdays were market days.  There was no time for sleeping in and no time for the Looney Tunes.  We would spend the whole morning into mid-afternoon there and whatever we could not sell at the end and what we could not blanch for storage, we would drive down to the food bank on the way home and donate our goods there.

I remember giving back.

Chances are, you or someone you know has been a recipient of services from a local food bank.  Please consider donating to your local food bank today as you never know the impact you may have on someone.