I try not to complain about heavy work, especially since the physical labor I do is trivial compared to people who work for a living and I just finished One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, though I’m talking about volunteering, not work for pay.

Still, over the past few days a few things conspired to make volunteering with delivering surplus food to give away to people who can use it.

• A few people who volunteer are out of town
• It’s cold! … below 20F (-7C)
• One place had about 25 gallons of milk nearing their expiration date so had to be delivered this morning
• It also had several cases of soda.

The upshot: I made three deliveries nearing my heaviest loads. Liquids are the hardest to carry since they’re dense. That’s why I mentioned the soda, for its density. I don’t like delivering doof since as far as health is concerned, it’s of negative nutritional value. Then when I deliver it, I become dismayed that people like it more than fresh vegetables.

With all the liquids, two loads were at least 150 pounds (68kg) and the other was pretty close. My cart is old and nearing the end of its life, so I have to treat it carefully, especially with heavy, dense loads. I can’t build up speed to go up ramps and sidewalk cuts. I have to pull lightly so the rod with the handle doesn’t fall off. It makes delivering take longer and stress my body more.

Anyway, it’s not serious labor, but I felt lonely enough doing it that I decided to post here for some sympathy.

I shouldn’t downplay the gratitude people express when they get the food. They include poor people who are the final recipients many of whom I’ve become friends with, staff at the churches and shelters, volunteers who prepare the food or redistribute it from those places, and staff at the stores I pick up from. Their smiles and thanks make the dismay go away. I prefer working on changing systems, but I find in the trenches hands-on practical experience essential to understand how to scale.

Here are a couple pictures. Ten gallons of milk were underneath all the potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, and other stuff in the first picture. I didn’t think to take a picture of the load before it, with 15 gallons. In the second picture, the soda was mostly underneath.

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• ← There will always be something just beyond our grasp we crave. Or we can learn to stop craving.