Life In The Fast Grain

There was a different kind of energy at the TAWS foodbank today. Two new volunteers were on the bag packing rounds and were making very fast work of it indeed. Then I was told of a mythical new volunteer who was decanting rice yesterday, and I was presented with a trolley full to restock as proof. Before I could wonder for too long about where these Volunteer 2.0 were coming from, I was asked to help a guy from the council to load some of the empty pallets onto his van. I enjoyed the weight lifting workout so much, I was asked to keep it going by carrying some bags of donated clothes to where they are stored upstairs. After a good set of stair reps with weights, I came back to the main room to help the new volunteers by restocking the food they were packing. That was when the cardio workout began, as they were going round so fast they were almost setting off smoke from spinning wheels. We were joined by Stephen, who got straight into the pace and kept me on my toes even more. It was great to meet him properly this time, as we had missed each other the other week. I had to work fast and think fast to keep up with all three as they filled bags, which felt great and energising. That being said, on a poignant day, we stopped at 11 in silent reflection for Armistice Day. However, we got back to it just as fast and furious as before. The only other interruption came from Taz from TAWS, as he did a Facebook Live video tour of activities going on with the organisation in Digbeth, as he walked around the city. Again, a quick wave hello and we were back to it. At the end of my time there, again we had managed to fill the empty pallets with food parcels to go out to people around the city.