Polar Vortex Preparations

[MossRoad]

Good for you, MossRoad. You and your wife are good-hearted people!

My wife is. :laughing:

 

[MossRoad]

No record once in a lifetime cold here. Record was -22F. Got down to -20F. Already up to -19F. Electric flickered a couple times this morning.

Cat is trying to figure out where that red and white emergency info banner scrolling from right to left on the TV is coming from.

 

[MossRoad]

Oooop. He gave up.

 

[Motorboatin]

My truck has 95k miles on it and I plugged it in for the first time last night. It still protested this morning

 

[cqaigy2]

My wife is. :laughing:

Lol, same here, my wife is always getting me out of the house to help somebody. This Xmas, we made little care packets with socks, glove, tooth brush paste, soap and food bars etc. Grandson was in charge of getting the zip lock bags out of the box, he walked about getting supplies from each "station" for the packets. Great fun for him.

 

[ruffdog]

Stupid crazy cold here.....now they are predicting a positive 40 this weekend....48 on Monday! That is a unreal temp swing!

 

[MossRoad]

Lol, same here, my wife is always getting me out of the house to help somebody. This Xmas, we made little care packets with socks, glove, tooth brush paste, soap and food bars etc. Grandson was in charge of getting the zip lock bags out of the box, he walked about getting supplies from each "station" for the packets. Great fun for him.

Good for you. :thumbsup:

At the food bank, there are 8 skid crates in a row. 4 items for each day. There's milk, juice, two snacks, canned pasta, canned soup, and two cereals. That's enough for two lunches. There's a barrel of plastic grocery-style bags at each end of the row. We grab a bag, walk down the row, pick an item from each skid crate and put it in the bag. Get to the end of the row, double tie the bag, put it in a crate, grab another bag, move to the other side of the skid crates and repeat. Over and over again. I walk faster than her, so about every 10th trip around I "bump" into her and tell her to get out of my way. :laughing:

Around an hour and 15 minutes into it we stop. Then we take flat cardboard boxes off of a skid, put them on a table, tape the bottom, flip it over, put in 10 lunches, tape the box closed, put it on a skid and repeat until all the lunches are boxed. So I'm boxing on one end and she's boxing on the other end and we hollar at each other for fun.

Once all the lunches are boxed, we restock the skid crates for about 25 minutes. The 2 hours is up, and we go out to dinner, which is kinda ironic, as we're packing lunches for hungry kids, yet eating out. Makes you appreciate the fact that you can afford food.

 

[MossRoad]

Thinking about it, we do about 300 lunches in 75 minutes. That's 150 lunches each, since there's two of us. So it's a lunch every 30 seconds.

Sometimes other volunteers come in groups. We notice that we work faster than young adults. Young kids under 15 tend to work really fast. People 40-75 work really fast. :laughing:

 

[ovrszd]

There's many folks here in South Bend that can't afford food for their kids. So they send them to school, where they get free lunch, and they get two take-home lunches on Friday for the weekend. If they can't afford food, they probably can't afford winter clothes.

So here's the conundrum....

- If they don't send them to school, they won't eat today.
- If they do send them to school in the cold weather, they'll get frostbite waiting for the bus.

My wife and I volunteer at the local food bank about 2 hours per week, where we pack those weekend lunches. She and I do about 300 lunches. Someone else does the rest. They distribute 2200 lunches each Friday. So there's 2200 kids whose families can't afford food for their kids. There's about 100,000 people in South Bend. From that, we can figure about 2% of the population are children whose families can't afford food or winter clothes.

And 99% of those parents have an expensive cell phone. 75% of those parents spend their food money on pop and frozen pizzas. 75% smoke. 50% don't have a steady job. 25% drive a car beyond their means.

I applaud your involvement. But it's not the solution.

 

[deezler]

And 99% of those parents have an expensive cell phone. 75% of those parents spend their food money on pop and frozen pizzas. 75% smoke. 50% don't have a steady job. 25% drive a car beyond their means.
I applaud your involvement. But it's not the solution.

C'mon man, the rest of us were just trying to feel good about him doing a good deed and helping others in this cold, unforgiving modern life we all share.

Surely some of those parents are irresponsible with their personal choices, but it's not a majority of them. 75% smoke? no way. Some people just aren't very intelligent, or given much resources, and expecting them to be able to shrewdly navigate life, get a great job and save lots of money is unrealistic. Other people just get dealt a bad hand in life, and accidents happen. Addictions are a real problem too. Have some compassion.

MossRoad, kudos to you and your wife. Don't feel at all bad about eating out after packing the lunches, you deserve it, and hey, some of their parents probably work at that restaurant, which needs the business.