Haley Loeffler/Winonan

The Winona Food Shelf was low on hands and needed volunteers on Oct. 25.

So, I signed up.

When I arrived, the workers immediately put me to work in the back, marking loaves of bread and drawing lines through the barcodes so a customer could not take the bread and then return it for cash.

The food shelf is located on East Second Street. Tasks include stocking the shelves, checking people out, counting points, bagging foods and breaking down cardboard boxes.

The food shelf is run by Winona Volunteer Services and is connected to the clothes shop, which is a consignment shop right next door to the food shelf.

On Thursday, the quarter sales were talking place, meaning everything was on sale for a quarter. Tasks there include hanging clothes, cleaning up the racks, deciding which can be accepted and also checking people out.

In the clothes shop, there is a sign in the break room titled “Why volunteer at Winona Volunteer Services.”

The list is as follows:
1. You get to see your other retired friends on a regular basis.
2. You can develop a whole new appreciation for people who have spend their entire lives working in retail.
3.You meet and make new friends to add to those you’ve left behind.
4. You become an expert at smiling through gritted teeth and saying “Sorry, those are the rules” when someone tries to argue down prices and tell you they can find new sheets at Wal-Mart for under $2.
5. On the other hand, you can beam as if it were your own personal achievement when someone says “Shoes for a dollar? Such a steal. Can’t beat that!”
6.You have the ability get free entertainment and fashion advice from the high school and college kids who come in, especially when you sincerely compliment them on the lovely things they’ve chosen, only to have them reply, “Yeah, I’m going to an ugly sweater contest tonight.”
7. After your first quarter sale, you’ll have the twenty-five multiplication tables down pat.
8. Free bread! Discounted clothing!

While volunteering at the Winona food shelf, I discovered people I didn’t know existed.

Not only that, but I saw the love in a mother’s eyes as her child picked out his breakfast cereal of choice, and the worry in her brow when she saw that she did not have enough points to bring it home.

There are people who are struggling with being in a place so deep and dark and no one else can even fathom what they’re going through.

It’s a volunteer’s honor and privilege to give these people a sense of normalcy, to give them someone to talk to them.

Besides looking great on a transcript, and possibly counting toward classes, volunteering can change not just a person’s day, but also it can change their life. For more information, call (507)-452-5591.

Contact Haley at [email protected]