“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have
a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to
serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

I’ll admit, I’ve heard and read this quote many, many times over the years
without giving it much thought beyond ”what a nice sentiment”. It wasn’t until I spent yesterday afternoon packaging around 7,000 pounds of frozen corn cobs with 35 fellow MLK Day volunteers that it truly hit home. It was about the least glamorous volunteer job one could imagine. We weren’t cradling sick babies or serving a hot meal at a homeless shelter or building a house for a family in need. . . all of those images that come to mind when we hear the word volunteer. Nope. Our volunteer project was more akin to working on a McDonald’s assembly line (but without all the grease).  We donned our hairnets, plastic bib aprons and latex gloves and got to work packing load after load of frozen corn in a big, cold warehouse for distribution to Western Washington food banks. The task at hand didn’t require any special skills beyond the ability to count out ten cobs of corn and use a twist tie. Children as young as six volunteered alongside graduate students and professionals, all working away. After a solid three hours of feverishly counting and packing corn, we had succeeded in emptying four 1,500 unit crates of loose cobs and packaging them into bags for distribution by Food Lifeline to individuals who rely on our local network of food banks.  While 7,000 pounds is no small feat, I was humbled to hear that Food Lifeline distributes 24 million pounds of food a year to Western Washington. Our four loads of corn were just a drop in the bucket of the millions and millions of pounds of food that come to Food Lifeline needing to be inspected, repackaged and distributed. However, what humbled me even more was that the majority of those 24 million pounds of food are repacked and distributed by volunteer groups who give their time to Food Lifeline all year round. There are literally thousands of people giving their time to help feed Western Washington and the impact is huge: 675,000 hungry people throughout Western Washington each year receive food as a result of all the volunteer hours spent doing something as simple as counting corn.  I don’t know about you, but that kind of blows my mind. With the number of families accessing food banks on the rise, more help than ever is needed to ensure that the most vulnerable in our community remain fed. From growing vegetables for local food banks to rescuing food from grocery stores to repackaging bulk food donations for distribution to taking the Hunger Challenge, there are literally hundreds of opportunities to heed Dr. King’s message and get out and serve. You don’t need a Master’s degree, or an impressive resume, or an important title to make an impact. All you need, as Dr. King so eloquently put it, is “. . . a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”