(#19) Making Care Packages With Operation Gratitude (April 19, 2014) – Part 1 (Grilled Cheese Sandwiches & Finding My Place in a Huge Operation)

May 1, 2014

At a previous volunteer event, I was introduced to Operation Gratitude, and I really wanted to go check out their operation!

So, on this day, I did.

I’m on their mailing list, and they said in their email that there would be food trucks available at lunch time. (Yum!) I know I’m trying to be extra healthy and all, but sometimes I just want to eat at the Grilled Cheese Truck.

Since I feel like I’ve heard about this truck numerous times out here in Los Angeles, I not only felt I had to try it – I tried two different sandwiches! I ate half a sandwich while I was there. I saved the other half and the other sandwich and over the course of the next two days, I finished all my food truck goodness.

The first sandwich was good, for sure. (I had macaroni and cheese inside my grilled cheese.) While it was delicious, I didn’t totally understand why this would be the talk of the town… until I had my dessert sandwich!

I had the s’mores melt (marshmallows, nutella, and graham crackers) with added peanut butter. And that’s when I totally got why this was something to write home about. Nom nom nom.

After chowing down on some grilled cheese, I went and signed in. Then, it was time to get to work.

At first, I felt this place was a little overwhelming. I’d never been there before, and there’s stuff everywhere. There are tables and tents outside. Inside, there’s this huge warehouse with stuff everywhere! From an outsider’s perspective, I had no idea what was going on.

I was told to just find someone in a blue shirt and they’d tell me what to do. They were just starting up the after lunch shift, so there were a bunch of us doe-eyed volunteers looking for blue shirt people to help us make sense of everything.

But ah, the blue shirted people. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they were oh-so-helpful.

Boom, they just made eye contact and pointed you right where you were supposed to go. ll the volunteers were being funneled into various positions pretty seamlessly as far as I could tell.

Almost in the blink of an eye, the well-oiled machine of this place became visible to me.

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.

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