Life after a layoff: Finding joy at a food bank

Good morning, DMV! It’s Wednesday, June 3.

Last Thursday, I joined Natalie Sharpe, a 33-year-old reader from Ellicott City, for volunteer work at the Maryland Food Bank in Baltimore. She had invited me in March, telling me she had found a nice group that volunteered together weekly and that it was helping through her own post-layoff depression.

I signed up, drove the hour and 10 minutes through the morning crush of traffic, and met Natalie. The guy in charge brought us into the kitchen, assigned us our tasks, then we got to it. For me and Natalie: croutons.

The food bank organizes meals for after-school programs and summer camps, focusing on meals in bulk to promote family-style dining at the sites they work with.

The volunteers across the table from us had a vat of freshly chopped tomatoes that they were portioning out into smaller containers. A team at the next table over cut up fresh honeydew, while others bagged apples.

Natalie and I opened industrial-sized bags of croutons, poured them into a large plastic bin, then scooped out portions into Ziplocs — 1 ounce per person, with portions ranging from 15 to 70 ounces.

We didn’t talk much because we were focused on the task at hand. But it was strangely soothing and satisfying ticking through the list, scooping and weighing croutons — in service to the wider community.

I didn’t take photos because we were so busy with the croutons! But we went to lunch afterward, and Natalie asked someone to take this photo.

I later emailed Natalie to ask her how she got involved in the food bank and how it helped her. Here’s what she told me (lightly edited for length):

“In November, I was laid off from my job of six years as a NASA contractor. I got through the holidays okay, but starting in January, I felt very depressed, isolated, and like I had no purpose.

“I had previously volunteered a couple times in the warehouse at the Maryland Food Bank back in the fall, after looking online for food bank volunteer opportunities in the area. I took another look at the food bank’s website and saw that they offered opportunities every weekday to work in the kitchen.

“I tried it for the first time in January and immediately loved it. I loved the repetitive tasks of packaging up food like turkey patties, grapes, or mixed vegetables, but I also loved being around other people and having a break from my own mind. After trying a few different days of the week, I found that I really liked the crew on Thursday mornings the best. There were several ‘regulars’ who came at that time who were very nice.

“I started going every Thursday morning. It was the highlight of my week. After some time attending regularly, I remember I walked into the room one morning where the volunteers gather and saw four now familiar faces who all smiled and said hi to me, and I thought ‘This is it. I’ve made it.’ As someone who has dealt with extreme feelings of isolation throughout their life, there is nothing better than walking into a room full of people who are happy you are there.

“I also added in a weekly volunteer session at the Howard County Food Bank and some evening exercise classes at the Y. These regularly scheduled activities, seeing friendly faces and engaging with others, was absolutely the only reason I was able to overcome my depression.

“I started this time period thinking I could NEVER be unemployed, I could never retire. Now, after 7 months, I feel that I have figured out how to do it, and I have come to enjoy having the time to volunteer and try other things.

“I am happy to say that I have found a new job and will be starting soon, but, unfortunately this means that I will not be able to continue my weekday sessions at the food bank. However, I am currently going through the process of becoming a ‘Big’ (a mentor) through the YMCA’s Big Brothers Big Sisters program. I am so excited to be matched with my Little!”

Congrats on the new job, Natalie! And thank you for inviting me into your world and inspiring me.

This newsletter is free. I work on it solo, spending hours each day looking for things to do, going out and doing them, writing about them — because I seek joy and want to share it with you. I treat my Daily Dose as a community gratitude journal and love doing it. If this newsletter brings you joy, please consider supporting my work with a one-time, monthly or yearly donation to help keep me going. Do you know anyone who would enjoy reading me? Forward this to them to help me grow. For newcomers: To subscribe, click here.

Patti Konrad, who is almost 80 and lives in the Greenspring Village retirement community in Springfield, Virginia, sent in these photos taken on May 23 during our several days-long period of rain.

“Gray, gloomy and dull. But there on a tree limb outside my balcony was a string of pearls,” Patti wrote to me in an email.

“We had such a run of rainy, gloomy, damp weather and truthfully, I was feeling a little like that too. But then I saw how beautiful those raindrops were and my day changed!”

She captured on the same day this flock of birds.

Share your recent photos of life in the DMV here.

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