Podcast Summary
What happens when students, families, and volunteers come together with one goal—helping Minnesota kids?
Join State Services for the Blind Pre-ETS students , Staff and family members, at Every Meal in Roseville, Minnesota, for an energetic afternoon of teamwork, conversation, and community service. Working side by side in fast-moving assembly lines, 42 volunteers packed more than 15,000 meals in less than an hour and a half. Those meals will help provide food for children who may rely on school meals during the week but face food insecurity over the weekend.
Students share what it was like to try something new, meet people, build confidence, and discover just how accessible volunteering can be. You’ll hear the sounds of the packing lines, plenty of laughter, and reflections from students, families, SSB Transition Coordinator Shane DeSantis, and Every Meal Volunteer Coordinator Liam.
It’s community service with an impact you can hear—and feel.
Links of interests:
To find out more about the services provided at State Services for the Blind, and what they can do for you, contact Shane DeSantis at shane.desantis@state.mn.us or call Shane at 651-385-5205.
Thanks for listening!
Full Transcript:
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Ava: It’s a great experience because we’re able to do some things that we didn’t really do very much. We might not really do a lot with packing food or with doing volunteer opportunities in the community, just to kind of help students get out of their comfort zones and learn some living skills, while also having the reward of helping other people.
Nawal: Pretty cool. I like it. It was my first event so it was pretty cool.
Shane: Super rewarding. Glad the students came out and had some fun as well and gave back to our community. We’ll definitely be back.
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We’re just going to be placing items into that bag.
Volunteer: There you go. When do you want to add your can inside there? Great.
Nawal: Okay.
Volunteer: let’s see which ones in there, yep. The first two items have been in there. And you’ll do this item.
Nawal: Okay.
Volunteer: Okay. You just add it like that.
Nawal: Yup.
Jeff: 42 volunteers in assembly line bags, cans, boxes, and everybody trying to keep up in less than an hour and a half, more than 15,000 meals would be ready to help Minnesota kids get through the weekend.
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson, and today we’re in Roseville, Minnesota, where state services for the blind brought students, families and volunteers together at Every Meal. For some children, breakfast and lunch at school aren’t just conveniences, they’re an important part of where their meals come from. But Friday afternoon begins a gap. Saturday and Sunday don’t come with a school breakfast or school lunch. That’s the gap that Every Meal is trying to fill. Every Meal intentionally puts the food bags into student’s existing backpack, rather than giving them a separate backpack, helping make the program more discreet.
Liam: Thank you all for taking time out of your week. My name is Liam and I’m the volunteer coordinator. At every meal. I’m merely one of 28 staff members that we have at this organization. Now, in just a moment, we’ll be in assembly line. So very much a teamwork makes the dream work situation. The first person who is the bag opener. You’re important because you’re setting the cadence for your line. You can also place the first item into the bag if you would like to do that. But notice there’s items one, two, three, four five going into the bag. The resource card also gets one of these going in there. And this is important because this is able to be accessed in English, Spanish, Hmong and Somali. So we get feedback right from our families that we review on a quarterly basis to influence our programming. And then tying the bag as if you’re starting to tie your shoes. So that initial knot, as you’re getting going there, if you are putting bags in the boxes for the first time, you can look like.
Jeff: With the instructions out of the way, it was time to get to work. We headed towards the parking area and everybody washed their hands.
Volunteer: Thanks for going.
Jeff: And then we divide it into assembly lines.
Volunteer: Have you been here before? Yes. Okay. All right. Well, we everyone sort of starts out a little cluster to the right when actually we need more hands down here. In fact, two big jobs down here is one person.
Jeff: As the lines fired up, so did the volunteers restocking all the supplies for trucks, picked up, filled flats and moved them along. It was basically non-stop for the next hour and a half, and our assembly line was no different than the rest. We are all volunteers with a common cause. Conversations flowed, laughter was heard and celebrations were. Another flat was filled.
Volunteer: Tell me your name, my friend. Come on. There you go. And then, Shane. What you’ll do if you want to add your can. Great. Yep. The first two items have been in there. And you’ll do this item. Okay.
Jeff: One entire packing line included SSB students with transition coordinator Shane DeSantis there as well. Ava had family there, parents, grandparents and her brother. Other volunteers filled the other assembly lines and represented different organizations, or simply showed up because they volunteered before and wanted the help again.
Volunteer: And then. You notice how the rice is in there on top of the can, do a single knot with a single nut, and then…
Jeff: My job wasn’t complicated. As the bag comes sliding towards me, I grab a can, put it in the bag, grab another, put it in the bag, and then move the bag down the line. And then do it again and again and again. And that is what the process was. Volunteers form assembly lines and fill bags with shelf stable fruits, vegetables, proteins and grains. By the time we finished, this group had packed more than 15,000 meals. Yeah, 15,000 meals.
Ava: I thought it was awesome. I, I’ve done this before, but I think this is probably the most productive one I’ve been a part of, actually. Even with like a littler party, I think we did great.
Makenzie: I really liked it. I did feed my starving children in the past. This is much better. Much better.
Jeff: Would you do it again?
Ava’s Brother: Oh yeah. I definitely do it again.
Ava: I heard from a couple of people say that it was more accessible than like some of the other, like food packing places they’ve gone to because it’s just, I mean, picking things up and doing things manually rather than having to, like, visually measure things. So I thought it was pretty accessible.
Makenzie: Sometimes we had to stop because we were going too fast.
Jeff: Did you make the person behind you work harder or did they make you work harder?
Makenzie: I didn’t really notice anything.
Ava: Careful what you say. I was the person behind you, I’m just kidding.
Jeff: A little competition going on.
Ava: It’s fun though, because it’s so local. I mean, like, you get to like, very easily see the rewards of it because like, it’s rewarding because it’s people that we could know that are getting these meals.
Jeff: Would you think of the event?
Nawal: Pretty cool. I like it. This is my first event, so it was pretty cool.
Ava: It’s kind of nice to have some of those like just assembly line type tasks because we get so used to them, and then it kind of feels like something easy we can do that does so much. It’s fun to talk to like new people too.
Makenzie: Yeah.
Ava: It’s like a good little social experiment to see why people are here and what they’re doing here and what their why is.
Shane: I thought this was way cool. I mean, we made such a big impact in a little amount of time that we came and volunteered, seeing the total of over 15,000 meals that we helped out in just a short amount of time. Super rewarding. Glad the students came out and had some fun as well and gave back to our community. We’ll definitely be back.
Jeff: So you went from education into nonprofit at every meal. What do you think?
Liam: I love it. I mean, the fact that I still get to use my teaching skills in different ways is fantastic. I attribute leading the food backpacking events. It feels very similar to directing a band because that’s what I came from, is the instrumental music classroom of directing concert bands. And so in that space, you know, you’ve got multiple students playing different instruments, so playing different roles. But as part of a larger, bigger picture, it feels very much the same with these events as well. So namely the fact that our mission is serving a basic need, such as food insecurity feels great too, because that was something that I experienced when I was teaching, is I would hear kind of through the woodwork sometimes, but then directly from students to some of the struggles that they faced, whether it was at school or at home. And some of those things ended up being basic needs like food, water, shelter. And so having seen some students suffering when I was a teacher and then now being able to serve so many through my position here at Every Meal, you know, coordinating volunteers is wonderful.
Jeff: It’s real touching to come here and see all the people working as hard as they were.
Liam: Right? Yeah, it feels so organic. I mean, every volunteer that comes in here, you know, we’ve got a great orientation and way in which we get volunteers started. But you know, from there, a lot of it’s we let them run. We’ve got some support from the ambassadors, but it always feels like these volunteers just take to the experience like a fish to water.
Ava: It’s really awesome because it’s very accessible. The people that are very aware of accessibility needs, and I think it’s a great starting opportunity for our organization to kind of get into like some volunteer experiences because as a blind person, we know that being helpful and accessible in a community that isn’t always providing us with opportunities to help is really amazing. And getting to do something like this is extremely rewarding, and it’s great for building success in the future. And it’s a great experience because we’re able to do some things that we didn’t really do very much. We might not really do a lot with packing food or with doing volunteer opportunities in the community. And since this is going to be a good starting place, we’re hoping to do some more of that in the future, just to kind of help students get out of their comfort zones and learn some living skills, while also having the reward of helping other people. Yeah, it’s very personal and it’s a really great organization.
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Jeff: Be sure to check out and subscribe to the Spectacle newsletter and learn about all the upcoming events and opportunities, and be sure to check out the numerous podcasts on the news for teens page, and you’ll find the links right in the show notes. And if you want to volunteer or support Every Meal, check them out on the web
EveryMeal.org.
To find out more about all the programs at State Services for the blind, contact shane.desantis@state.mn.us. That’s shane.desantis@state.mn.us. Be sure to contact your state services for the blind. Your VOC Rehab and find out what they can do for you. Live, work. Read. Succeed.
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Jeff: To find out more about all the programs at State Services for the Blind, contact Shane.DeSantis@State.Mn.us
That’s Shane dot d-e-s-a-n-t-i-s at state.mn .us.
Be sure to contact your State Services for the Blind, your Voc Rehab and find out what they can do for you.
Live, work, read, succeed.
[Music] [Transition noise] –
When we share-
What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.