[Music] hi i'm miss penny i'm very excited to meet you and today we're spending a day with a volunteer hello miss penny i'm miss lewis jolene lewis and it's nice meeting you can you first tell us what is a volunteer the volunteer is someone that give of their time and helping and various tasks it doesn't matter what it is but you have to like doing and that's what i do i love volunteering and it makes me feel good when i do so how did you find out about volunteering i guess growing up i knew about volunteering and that's what i wanted to do i started with my son in the classroom helping with the teachers from there i got involved with the pta and whatever it is that i'm needed i'm gonna be the one oh i can help it's wonderful to know that there are people out there with hearts as big as yours that are willing to help other people and feel good about doing that what motivates you to be a volunteer i like doing it it's like a passion it helps your mind your body like a medicine after doing it it's just a good feeling when you volunteer and that's what i do i really love doing it one other thing i do is help out with the mobile school pantry i look forward in going out and helping and doing what i need to do and after we've done for the day it's like you go home you got have that feeling of accomplishment that's what it does for me i love it you're so inspiring it's nice to know people that really care enough to put themselves out there and help others now we're going to spend the day volunteering with you thank you so much [Music] please introduce yourself and tell us about the mobile school pantry so my name is zaina most people call me z and i'm the proud founder of the mobile school pantry and mobile school pantry provides fresh fruits and vegetables and non-perishable food items to children and families in need what inspired you to create the mobile school pantry i was working at the leukemia lymphoma society and just heard a lot of children in lines during an assembly there one day saying how hungry they were um you know when was lunchtime mrs smith when is snack time and it just was shocking to see so many children really struggling for food i went back and i started researching different programs and ideas i i looked for things kind of in the food banking world because that's kind of where i'd come from prior to leukemia and lymphoma society and food for me was something that nobody should really struggle with and i came across school pantries and it was a pilot program there was nothing like it in the state of florida so i decided this could be it this could be the way we can help families in our community here in broward how many schools do you serve so we went from the one school in our 13 families to now serving over nine schools and over 2 000 families throughout broward county wow we make a big difference when you're putting an organization of volunteers together where do you get your volunteers so in the early days my father was an incredible supporter and still is along with mrs lewis and mrs cruz these were my regular volunteers who still come and support to this day i mean as we've grown incredible organizations like hands-on broward and the children's service council broward county have really helped grow our reach and our arm and getting more volunteers engaged in the community and of course our community sees what we do now and really wants to take part and help give back how would i get involved you would go to our website at www.mobileschoolpantry.org or of course you can find us on facebook and instagram on our social media pages thank you so much c i am very excited to spend our day with you thank you i'm excited to have you guys and i'm just so inspired by all the people in our community who helped make this possible like i said our mission is not possible without volunteers and volunteers they're silent heroes that you don't see on the nightly news but they work so hard like miss lewis and the incredible volunteers we get from hands-on broward and throughout our great community you guys volunteers make it all possible [Music] so welcome everybody to mobile school pantry we're excited to get started here today we're going to divide ourselves into two teams and before i get started explaining everything i am just so grateful to all of you guys for coming out here today and volunteering with us we are a volunteer driven organization so you fuel our mission so we're gonna get started like i said we're gonna split up into our two teams and one is gonna do vegetables the other you're gonna do the apples and we are gonna split up you're gonna fill up your bags according to the numbers you see right underneath each item and then you're going to come all the way to the end there and you'll tie your bag and somebody's going to load the truck and you'll start right back over you're going to stay in your lanes you're going to social distance yourselves and we're gonna feed families in our community right after we finish this great work guys so way to go before we even get started we're excited and thanks again for coming out [Music] [Music] now that all the produce is packed it's time to distribute the food to families in need we drove to a nearby school to unload the truck and give out the food to the families waiting in line [Music] with the drive-through method we were able to place fresh produce into cars safely and efficiently come on up come on [Music] volunteering is a great way to give back to your community it feels good to help others look for volunteer organizations in your area like the mobile school pantry every helping hand counts let yours be one of them [Music] you