Our Daily Bread

By: Jeremy Harvey

This week I had the pleasure of volunteering again at a local soup kitchen, "Our Daily Bread". This was something that was very familiar to me because every summer I take kids from my youth group to the soup kitchen and let them get the chance to volunteer and help those less fortunate than them. I love going up there, Chef Liz as you can see in the photo, is such a nice lady but can be a disciplinary person if needed. She makes sure the kitchen is run smoothly and mistakes are kept to a minimum. The kitchen gets donations daily from various people and organizations. I have seen things from left over chicken and vegetables from organizations such as Chicken Express and Chik-fil-a among other widely known names, to local gardens of individuals or church gardens. All the donations are kept in the refrigerator and freezer if they need to be. Both the refrigerator and freezer are very large and have to be organized and restocked all the time -- not the best job, but somebody has to do it. There is a lot of food that gets donated, as you can see by photos below. These two pictures show only half of the refrigerator and freezer. But with out the donations, I don't know how the kitchen could serve as many people as it does. I volunteered at the beginning of the month

so there was not as many people there because people had just gotten paid and were not in as much need for assistance. Even with that in mind, there were still approximately 150 people there needing help. I normally volunteer during the summer and the type and number of people who visit the kitchen during those months changes considerably. The kitchen feeds as many as 250 people each day during the summer, many of which are children because they are out of school. Many of the children who come to the kitchen are obese. The reasoning behind this fact is discussed by Garcia and Pollan in the readings from class. Particularly, Garica describes how children become plump during the summer months because they are deprived of healthy meals that they normally receive from the school cafeteria. Further, they are forced to eat cheaper food which is typically less healthy and, many times, simply eat junk food from a convenience store. Garcia states that in "a 2007 study of grocery prices found 1,000 calories of junk food, like pastries and soda, cost on average 10 times less than a 1,000 calories of nutritious foods, like fruits and vegetables." In other words, it is cheaper for a person to fill up on junk food than healthy food and at such prices, farmers cannot compete. Garcia's statements are confirmed by Pollan's study of Drewnowski's hypothetical dollar. Drewnowski was instructed to purchase as many calories as possible with his hypothetical dollar. He found that purchasing highly processed foods allowed him to accumulate the most calories for the least amount of money. For example, he could purchase 1,200 calories worth of cookies and potato chips for a dollar and only 250 calories of carrots. He could buy 875 calories of soda and only 170 calories of orange juice with his hypothetical dollar.

Chef Liz has done her job for so long that she is usually able to judge how much food needs to be prepared so that everyone who comes to the kitchen can have a meal. Many times, Chef Liz makes enough food so that participants can have seconds or even take food home. There have been times, though, that the kitchen ran out of the food they had prepared for the day and had to improvise by making sandwiches so the people wouldn't go hungry. She definitely does her part to help combat hunger in Denton County, Texas. According to the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), 12.6 million households are food insecure, including 22.7 million adults and 12.4 million children. "Food insecurity is an official government term that means lack of access and resources to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle." Liz has gotten to know a lot of the people, their tendencies, what they are allergic to, and what they like the best. She makes a good meal each day that consists of a main course and usually a couple sides dishes such as fruit salad and bread or something along those lines. Then she also has cakes and pies that are donated from the supermarkets like Wal-mart and Kroger, which allows the participants there to have choice without added stress on Liz.

She also offers tea, water and juice for the people to drink. Chef Liz gives the people lots of variety and really cares for these people. She makes sure that we cut up everything pretty small because she knows there are people with teeth problems that can't chew the bigger pieces and she wants to make sure that the food can be enjoyed by everybody. She does receive a lot of donations that are fresh, such as fruits and vegetables, which she is very thankful for because these donations enable her to prepare healthier meals. Chef Liz is very selective with fresh produce and will not use anything that is ruined or doesn't look like something she would eat. She wants only

the best for these people, even if it is only something as small as a meal. She hopes that her kindness and effort will brighten their day and the food she prepares to stop their hunger pains. As I stated before, the kitchen receives a tremendous amount of donations from many different sources which enables Liz to make variety of food so people don't have to eat the same things over and over. She has a fantastic menu and the food is great. In addition to preparing a noon meal, Liz will package up canned goods for people to take with them so that they will be able to eat that night. The kitchen also receives donated pastries every morning and Liz makes sure that these are distributed to those participants who come in early. Volunteering at the soup kitchen isn't always enjoyable though. I don't always get the chance to serve the meal and interact with all the people. Sometimes I have to help wash dishes, which can be fun, but it is not a satisfying as being able to help the people who come in for a meal, shake their hand, or offer a few kind words of encouragement. While washing dishes, I am able to talk to the people in the back that volunteer on a daily basis and see what they like and why they do this daily. As a Christian, it is very rewarding to see so many people giving up their time to volunteer and do something good for others, even if some of the people that are being helped are not grateful. As much as you would hate to believe it, there are people that come into the kitchen that don't say thank you or even smile at you. Now even though I don't live in their shoes, I would still like to think that people getting help would at least smile at you when you are serving them, but sadly there are some people that don't. Soup kitchens like this one play a big part in society because many people these days don't have the money to buy food or prepare

a meal and need places like this where they can go and receive a hot meal with out having to worry about judgement or money. Sadly, though, not everyone who goes to the kitchen are truly in need. There are students and people with smart phones and laptops. I am not saying it is right or wrong and the kitchen doesn't turn them away. In my opinion, we as a society need to embrace the concept of acceptance as a way of life and not be so judgmental. The kitchen is a place where you can go no matter your race, age, gender or social stature. Chef Liz and the volunteers are there to serve everyone.

Arcadia Trail Park Clean Up : Anna Gomez

                Due to the storms many streams in the neighborhood parks collected a lot of debris. Not just sticks and natural debris there was human debris including coffee cups, soda cans, plastics and much other trash that did not belong in the streams. Haltom City, the small town that I live in was having a neighborhood park clean ups.  I became aware of this project through the Haltom City Library and Rec. centers. I signed myself up along with my handy dandy photographer boyfriend, Nick. It was a sunny Wednesday afternoon there were many families participating in the neighborhood park clean ups. I thought to myself that many people were getting involved with the environment and teaching their children too instead of staying inside on such a beautiful day. Compared to me, why I was looking into environmental volunteering was for a Service Learning Project for my Environmental Issues course. But after today my purpose in helping the environment would change. 

                The adventure started as we were given our park location, the Arcadia Trail Park. This neighborhood park was huge; it was in the heart of a very well developed neighborhood. There was plenty of fresh air to be enjoyed on such a sunny day like today. Many of the families were already there since 8am. They carried garbage bags upon garbage bags filled to the brim with debris from the storms. I started to just observe the families; they took the time from their day to come to their neighborhood park to clean up and beautified it again so that their children could enjoy playing in a clean outdoor environment. They all too the responsibility as if it was their own backyard and accepting these tasks as daily yard work. I was very impressed and kind of shocked, because I know in today society we are very busy with work and our own personal life to even consider the environment. I know many people are trying to become more “one with nature.” Being green is the new political, fashionable, and reasonable way to life.

                Nick and I started to explore the park; we came across a stream deep in the trails of the Arcadia Park. The one thing I notice was the bridge to walk across the stream; it had collected a lot of debris. You could tell the water level rose above the bridge and when it settled it left behind all the unwanted trash and uprooted roots, branches and debris. We walk along the stream’s muddy banks, the water was clear and you can see all the life the stream holds. The little fish swimming, the insects eating, it was beautiful. But there was a coffee cup. This coffee cup washed up on the side of the stream out of the way of the fish and insects but it still did not look natural, it did not look as beautiful as if it was not there at all.  I started notice more trash, and the stream that I once saw as beautiful I started to see it as polluted by humans. That’s when I took on the responsibility to start cleaning up this stream, I didn’t understand why my perspective changes, it was almost an anger feeling. I did not understand how humans could pollute something so innocent something so pure. I have seen coffee cups before but seeing it laying washed up on the bank I felt that this was not right.

“Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals. Food chains are the living channels which conduct energy upward; death and decay return it to the soil. The circuit is not closed; some energy is dissipated in decay, some is added by absorption from the air, some is stored in soils, peats, and long lived forests; but it is a sustained circuit, like a slowly augmented revolving fund of life. There is always a net loss by downhill wash, but this is normally small and offset by the decay of rocks. It is deposited in the ocean and, in the course of geological time, raised to form new lands and new pyramids.” (Leopold ,145)

                I looked back onto the readings from class and I compared my situation to what I have read. Plumwood took a nature expedition and she found herself almost eaten by a crocodile, she “glimpsed the world from the outside as a world no longer [her] own but indifferent to [her] life and death.” The only thing eating me were the mosquitoes, I never thought myself as prey to the mosquitoes but if you really think about it in the view Plumwood describes “how could humans possibility be food?” Animals were always our food but to think that we as humans can never be eaten developed a very anthropocentric view. Humans feel that the world revolves around them, we are in the center because we have power we say we are smarter than any species but really we are just another animal. We must become one with nature to fully understand our purpose. It is also how Carl Sagan explain the “Pale Blue Dot,” from the distant of outer space that pale blue dot we call home does not seem so important but when you zoom up into the big picture that blue dot holds everyone we love it holds our future. It is also the one planet that humans can survive and live comfortably. We must stop polluting our home because we do not know maybe one day everything can just die out. This brings me to the next topic that enlightens me. The trouble with wilderness, Cronon develops a paradox slash dualism between humans and nature. He believes that our very presents in nature destroys, humans cannot live in nature without causing nature some sort of harm.   Humans are natures own personal cancer. But when we think of wilderness we don’t always think about nature. Wilderness is the last place where civilization has not fully infected. Also humans believe that wilderness is the Amazon Rainforest or the Grand Canyon but really wilderness was the Arcadia Trail Park. The trees, grass, soil, rocks, different species of birds, fish, insects just the whole entire park is wilderness. A lot of humans do not realize that our backyard is considered wilderness. This idea was develop through two famous philosophers Pincho, a modernism, and Muir, Romanticism. Pincho believed very anthropocentric mechanistic view where as Muir was very eco centric view. Pincho wanted to preserve wilderness for the men because wilderness transform a boy into a man. Whereas Muir wanted to preserve wilderness for its beauty. Muir felt that the wilderness was an encounter with God wilderness was very spirited and must be protected for that very reason. One aspect that I could conclude with both philosophers was that the wilderness is part of the American identity it tells who we are and what we have become. Nowadays we held wilderness at a very high standard and we must realize that wilderness is not just the Amazon Rainforest it is also the stream that flows thru the Arcadia Trail Park.

                                          

                Throughout the day I thought to myself that the first step to my transformation was taking this Environmental Issues course, I did not think I could learn so much and be able to look at the environment and the many issues that contribute to destroying our Mother Earth and say to myself I can make a difference. The second step was applying my knowledge and actually doing something about the problems. At first when I sign up for the neighborhood park clean up I was just fulfilling the service learning project but I just needed to dig a little deeper and now with the knowledge that I have acquired I can make a difference one community at a time.

Helping Out By: Jeff Goodemote

When i was about ten years old i helped build homes for a poor community. People that could not afford homes for themselves, so i got involved in an organization that does this for people. I would spend days and days doing this. In doing this i felt great doing something for others that actually meant something and doing something that was not for myself. Something that i was not forced to do. So for this Service learning project i decided to pickup trash in the flower mound area in a location that I have not seen and this is something i wanted to do in my own steam this was not something that a group forced me to do i wanted to contribute on my own and make a difference in the area i live in.

As far as the experience well after i did this i felt very good about giving back to a community that quite frankly has given so much to me. Also though at first i did not enjoy doing the act at first just because when i was doing picking up trash i felt like i wasnt doing much. Then i realized after looking down one full trash bag that i was doing alot just in picking up trash. I was miserable thourgh the experience to because i have very bad allergies and the out doors usually does not sit to well with my allergies and of course i had misquetos eating me alive and on top of that my clothes were muddy. Also in my mind when i dont know where i am for a long period of time i get very uncomfortable. As i said before at the end of it all I felt good about what I did I felt that i played a part in protecting the enviornment and helping with the up keep of the earth. That in my opionion that is more than just picking up trash that is caring for the very place in which we live.

I think the this relates two the readings because its shows that we need to preserve the very land we live on. To do that we need to take of it and, we need to not pollute all the time. We take advantage of nature often by constantly abusing it just because we think that nature will heal itself well guess what? It won't. I think our mindset is that if technology keeps getting better then we can just depend on that to cleanup after our pollutions. In the plumwood reading he gets attacked by a crocodile and then has whole different interpretation of why he got attacked. Which relates to how we look at animals because we think that we are above nature and animals and that we can just trash a land that they live on and not think twice about it. Well thats incorrect because the more we keep thinking that we are above nature the worse of the earth will be which ties in with pollution. If we keep polluting than we kill animals and the nature around us then what will have left? At first i think plumwood thinks he is above the crocdile and does'nt think twice about trust passing into his home. Its the same concept of when i went into the woods to clean up trash i could have been invading an animals home and not even realized it. At the end of the plumwood reading he has a change of heart and realizes why he was attacked.
"As i began my 13-hour journey to Darwin Hospital, my rescuers discussed going upriver the next day to shoot a crocodile." (plumwood)

How this relates to the other reading Biocultural diversity is if we destroy the very planet we live on than not only do tradtions go away but our culture as we know it would change in a big way. We cant just keep taking the world for granted anymore we need to be active in protecting our world. Because if we don't then things could change and not for the better. "This Phenomenom has been called the extinction of experience the radical loss of the direct contact and hands on interaction that comes with the sourrounding envriornement that traditionally comes through subsistenace and other daily life activities."(maffi pg.7) So if we let technology take over and then we could lose the very thing we call nature.

In Class we defined polliton as something toxic thats where its not supposed to be. Well according to that defintion we as a community have a lot of cleaning up to do and protecting to do if we want to keep nature pure and existant. All in all i really enjoyed doing this project. At the end of it all i felt really good doing something that actually helps the earth and the community and it feels good to give back Also i think more people should take an active role in cleaning our community because with everyones help we could make this a less polluted earth. In all this I learned that everyone has the potential they just need to go out and do it. As far as I go I learned that even though at first you dont want to do something that if you end up doing it, Its all worth it in the end.

Creek Clean Up: Kaitlyn Graves

Since my freshman year here at UNT I have been a part of the Club Tennis Team, and we as a group try to participate in as many community service projects as time will allow for us to. We like to try to give back to the community in any way we can, not only because everybody should try to do their part to contribute, but also because it is a way for the team to bond and spend time together while doing a selfless act for someone else. Recently the team took on a project in which we decided to participate in cleaning up a local water source and the land around it. It was a miserable day outside, wet, cold, and just overall nasty, but we made a commitment and we had to stick to it, so at 8AM we all got into our cars and drove to a remote area on the outskirts of Denton County that I had never even seen before. When we pulled up, we drove into what looked like a small clearing, and we all got out of our vehicles, trash bags and gloves in hand, and got to work. We had to hike a ways to get to the area that was the worst polluted, and once we got there it was a never ending supply of garbage. I had never seen so much waste in my life. I believe we ended up collecting over 50 trash bags full of garbage, and if it hadn’t started raining so hard I’m sure we would have collected more. Going into the project I wanted to get a sense of unity within my team, and also feel like I had accomplished something that really helped someone other than just myself. I find that as I am getting older it is important to remind myself that I have to think of others just as much, if not more than I think of myself, because in my opinion a person who puts others before themselves is a well rounded individual. Volunteering in my opinion builds character within a person, because it humbles them and makes them see that although things may not be that bad in their lives, or their families or their backyards that for some, that isn’t the case.

While making my way through bushes and thorns and climbing over fallen trees, I realized that I was somewhat out of my element. Although to a much lesser degree, I think that this may be how Plumwood felt as she was canoeing through the Kakadu’s paperbark wetlands. At first she didn’t feel as if she was out of place at all, because like many people feel today, they are at the top of the food chain and in some ways feel they are invincible. Plumwood was soon to realize this was not the case, just as my friend Eric who was my trash pick-up buddy during our adventure, would also realize. Eric and I were just crawling deeper and deeper into the wooded parts of the path, when we saw a tree who’s branches had grown over and were hanging onto the ground, looking much like a tangled mess of vines. However, inside of these vines was an enormous amount of litter. So, Eric and I being the brave souls that we are, decided to try our luck and try to climb within the tangled mess and retrieve as much of the trash as we could. In order for us to get to the underside of the tree we had to climb over a log that was in our way, and as we did Eric stepped on it, and stood there for a second catching his breath. In just a few seconds we would realize how bad of an idea this was, because within moments there were thousands of fire ants crawling all up his legs and biting him viciously. As the first few ants bit Eric he was stunned! He wasn’t quite sure what was going on, and his initial reaction was to shout, and start patting his legs trying to get them off, but the ants territory had already been invaded, and they were in survival mode, so getting them all off was nearly impossible. Creatures out in the wild do not see humans as a source of food, and in my opinion do not attack them simply because they want to. For the most part, unless under stressful situations in which there is a shortage of food or some other extenuating circumstances such as the animal is confused, I think animals only attack humans if they feel threatened. Which is more than likely how the crocodile that attacked Plumwood felt, and also how the fire ants felt that attacked my friend, Eric. In the case of Plumwood, it is possible that the crocodile was confused by the shadow of the canoe. Sharks tend to mistake surfers as sea turtles or seals, so crocodiles may also have that same mentality in which they see something that resembles food and go for it! Plumwood makes the statement as her canoe is under attack that “For the first time, it came to me fully that I was prey.” I believe this is many people response when they are suddenly “under attack” by a creature that they ordinarily felt was of no threat to them. Eric’s encounter with the fire ants was definitely a lesson for me that I need to watch what I am doing when trespassing in nature.

As I was walking through the wooded paths I kept thinking about how much I wish we had more areas like this one. Not areas polluted with trash and waste, but areas that are remote, peaceful, filled with trees and life. Living within Denton, I sometimes feel like I don’t get enough time with nature. Just to look at the trees and be around something other than pavement and buildings. I noticed this even today, as I drove home. Although my home town is only an hour and a half away, it is quite a bit smaller than Denton, and therefore isn’t nearly as developed. I was driving through town while home and noticed how many more trees there were than if I were to be just driving around in Denton. I know that there are plenty of places in Denton where there are still woodsy areas and paths through the woods, but with my routine of driving to school, and work, and to the store I tend to not see them as frequently as I would like to. As I think all of this I like to reflect on Mills article in which he discusses nature as having three different meanings. My favorite of which is when he says, “Nature does not stand for what is, but what ought to be;” I definitely think that as a community we need to take this statement into consideration more often. I know that living in the society that we live in today with the cultures that we have developed it would be impossible to stop producing and developing, but wouldn’t it be nice? Sometimes I think it would be. Just to live with the basics and live off of nature and in nature. This clearly isn’t a realistic thought, but it is a peaceful one, and I find myself feeling comfort in thinking about living this way. That is until my phone goes off or the microwave beeps and I’m snapped back to reality.

“Man is biologically predestined to construct and to inhabit a world with others.
This world becomes for him the dominant and definitive reality. Its limits are set
by nature, but once constructed, this world acts back upon nature. In the dialectic
between nature and the socially constructed world the human organism itself is
transformed. In this same dialectic man produces reality and therefore produces
himself.”

This paragraph has been taken from Peterson’s Social Construct of Nature and I wanted to include it because I find it to have a very interesting meaning. Although my interpretation of it may be completely off, I believe in a way Peterson is saying that although man is meant to live with others, we tend to take what is given to us and make it our own and somewhat dominate it, much like we have with nature. Peterson says, “Its limits are set by nature, but once constructed, this world acts back upon nature.” This to me is saying that humans are restrained by nature, but rather than simply backing off we mold nature into what we want it to be and construct our own reality. Luckily the area that myself and my tennis team helped to clean up hadn’t been touched yet by the harsh hand of man, but I’m sure it won’t be long before it is being developed on. While I was volunteering I was also taking my time to kind of explore and look around. Nature is quite the interesting place to be. You can’t go 5 minutes without hearing some sort of rustle in the bushes or seeing a butterfly. It really is so full of life! It’s almost frightening if you really think about it.

I went into this project just looking to “do my part” and “give back” but I came out of it with a new respect for nature that I didn’t expect to have. I’ve always been very outdoorsy but when you see something that you love so much being treated so badly it really gets to you. I never realized that things could get that bad, and I’m positive that I haven’t even seen the worst of things. What I experienced was just a glimpse into what is all around us. After this project was over, I found myself wanting to devote more time to cleaning up, or at least do what I could to pick up a candy wrapper while walking to class. Nature is a beautiful place, and should be treated with respect, which is what I intend to do from this day forward.