Gleaners Food Bank

In January I made a trip with a local Jewish youth group to the Gleaners food bank in downtown Detroit. Not only was this my first time interacting with a youth group, but the first time I had been to a food bank in nearly 2 years. The youth group, consisting of 10-15 high school children from around the area, had been working with different organizations (food groups, retirement homes, charities for disaster relief) since their conception 3 years ago; needless to say I was greatly impressed.
Though as a Country Day student we are required to do 10 hours of community service, I feel like I am often too consumed by school work to organize my time doing charity work. When I saw these excited kids very similar to me helping the local community, I asked myself, “What can I do to contribute to the community as much as my fellow high school students?” Here are some solutions I can think of:

1. Waste less time in order to finish school things earlier
2. Put myself out there with youth groups like these to see if they need assistance
3. Find a cause that I am passionate about and work for that cause!

The first cause that comes to mind is tennis; I have a vast knowledge of the sport which should be shared with those who are less fortunate and have not been able to take as my lessons as I have. In future I plan to either do a charity tennis tournament (an idea which I have had yet failed to act upon numerous times) or give free lessons to those in the community who cannot afford them. I think this has important ethical implications; those who are privileged must help those who are not. I have been given many opportunities to learn the sport of tennis and I intend to pass this knowledge on to future generations of tennis players.
Back to the experience at the food bank. The lady who runs this chapter of the food bank told us that there are a growing number of people who cannot afford to buy their own food and need assistance. This troubles me greatly and goes back my previous statement that the privileged must help the lesser privileged.
Our group made bags of food that children would get at school and take home for their family to eat at dinner (there was not that much food in the bags). It looked like donations were running low (perhaps DCDS needs another food drive) and they needed money to purchase fresh meats (a rarity which food banks often struggle to provide). With that said, it was great to see high school kids making a difference. It showed me that regardless of age, people can always make a difference if they put their minds to it.

“It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover”
– Henri Poincaré.