Maggie's Farm

Last week I spent some time working as a volunteer at the local Food Bank.  I figure I'll put my time to good use and help others, and so I've been signing up to volunteer there.  I was amazed at what I did, and how it was set up.
There were 6 of us volunteers, not a huge group (considering they had openings for 30), but as our leader said "I know we can do great things despite being small in number."  

What struck me are how priniciples of good business and manufacture can be utilized for more than just businesses and provide great value.  The gains and innovations that come from free enterprise are useful and widespread - and it's not just about making a profit, it's about being efficient.  Efficiency - that's where the value is.  Adam Smith noted this in his writings over 250 years ago, as he talked about the division of labor and how valuable it was (his pin factory description comes to mind). 

When modern Wokesters discuss the gains of our economy they diminish and degrade all aspects of capitalism, right down to free enterprise and division of labor.  The division of labor is at times described as 'mind-numbing' and 'unfulfilling'.  They love to talk about the 'dignity of labor', and yes working is dignified.  But from their perspective the 'dignity' is in doing ALL the tasks required to reach an end result.  Yet here I was at the Food Bank utilizing this division to help people in a big way, and feeling very fulfilled in doing my small, 'mind-numbing' role.

We have boxes of food stacked behind an assembly line - cans of tuna, boxes of mac and cheese mix, cans of fruit, pancake mix, etc.  As our team arrived, we positioned ourselves between the boxes and the assembly line.  First person in line took an empty box, put some food items in, passed it on to the next person who put in one or two items, all the way to the end where the last person put in a flyer with information on SNAP, taped it shut, and stacked it on a pallet that was then lifted and loaded to a truck when it was filled.  I personally handled putting 3 items into each box, and noticed that others struggled to open the food boxes.

I saw some box cutters nearby, grabbed them and during down moments ran from stack to stack ripping them open so the process wouldn't slow too much.  After 3 hours our team of 6 had assembled almost 700 boxes of food - a week's worth of food for 700 families. 

3 hours of work doing, basically, one thing - loading 3 cans/boxes of food out of one box into another box.  If I had to do this on my own, I calculated that maybe it would have produced about 20 boxes an hour or 60 total per person.  We'd have had to open all the boxes ourselves, shift the food, make sure the right quantities of each were added, put in a flyer and then tape it shut.  Maybe 30 per hour or 90 boxes over 3 hours.  At what may have been our extreme best efforts alone, we'd have completed 540 boxes.  As a team, as an assembly line doing 'mind-numbing' and 'unfulfilling' work, we may have fed almost 160 more families. 

Leftists would claim their worldview applied 'properly' would eliminate the need for Food Banks.  Of course, history has proved them wrong many times and they are simply ignorant of this fact.  My experience says that the surpluses of capitalism and free enterprise - donated to the Food Bank, which we were repacking (some of it was name brand foods!) - more than supplements the presumed shortcomings of the free enterprise system.  Could we do more?  Certainly we always can do more. 

But for me it was a lesson in good business practice and economics, and one I truly enjoyed.

As a side note, the woman working next to me was a younger Hispanic woman who was very chatty.  She obviously volunteered often, as she knew many of the full time workers on the forklifts.  She told them she'd lost 150 pounds.  I looked at her with surprise.  She replied "I'm 5'4" and have 3 kids and I'm a single mother.  The weight was killing me, so I chose to lose it.   And I did."  I congratulated her and asked what she did for a living.  She replied "I run my own trucking company out of my house, I have 5 trucks and if I need to drive I will, but I've got full time workers now.  I also help others in my neighborhood sell their crafts online."  I was surprised and said "You still have time to volunteer here?"  She said "I'm a workaholic, what can I say?  I have to keep moving." 

I was very impressed with her motivation and generosity.  People like her make our nation great.  They are the best of us. I don't see anyone in Washington who could match her in terms of tenacity, willpower, desire and a generally good nature.  An inspiring story as I prepare for the new year.