Hannah Marsh

During this shift I had the opportunity to assist several shoppers as well as organize a lot of the holiday food that was coming in. The shoppers coming in on Tuesday afternoons were patients and it is always interesting to hear their stories and how they are doing because I have gotten to know a few of them, some having seen them for several weeks in a row. One thing that really stood out to me during this experience was that a lot of them are going through a lot especially when it comes to their health but they are almost always so thankful and positive about life and how they are making it. I was speaking to a gentleman that came in right after doing chemo treatment and he was super upbeat even though he was obviously in some discomfort. I am so grateful for the experience to be able to serve these people through Blazer Kitchen and the wider UAB community.

For this volunteering experience I really enjoyed that I was able to experience all the sides of volunteering with Blazer Kitchen. I was able to learn how to check out shoppers, as well as put new shoppers in the system and take inventory of the products. I also really enjoyed interacting and talking with the different shoppers that came through. Overall it wasn’t too challenging, probably the biggest thing was figuring out how to reboot the computer system because it kicked me out several times. My main takeaways was that it was just fun to meet and interact with different people from uab and hear about how their weeks were going.