This past summer, I interned at Crooked Creek Food Pantry (CCFP) for eight weeks. To say this experience was eye-opening would be an understatement. Crooked Creek Food Pantry gives out food to the underserved communities of Pike and Washington township, as well as patients of the Pecar Hospital that the food pantry is attached to. One of the biggest surprises to me was the quality of food that we served. Zachary Fawbush, the operations manager, made an emphasis to give out lots of fruits and vegetables, while also mixing in some sweets, bread, and other miscellaneous food items. I had the opportunity to visit another food pantry during my time and was surprised to see how much food they were serving with little nutritional value as opposed to the food being served at Crooked Creek.
This internship constantly required critical thinking. Since the CCFP has very limited space, we always had to find ways to keep the pantry organized while still keeping food we had just received out of the way of food that we needed to give away soon. This job also required a lot of leadership skills, as my intern group was put in charge a lot, especially after the first couple of weeks, so we were in charge of finding different jobs for interns to do, while also managing serving food.
The most beneficial part of this internship, in my opinion, was definitely the conversations I was able to have with both customers, as well as other volunteers. Many of the volunteers at CCFP were retired and had been volunteering at CCFP for years, so being able to hear their life stories and how the food pantry had affected them was always something of interest to me. One specific volunteer, Donald, was also a customer at the food pantry and I was able to interact with him a lot and got to learn about how the food pantry was able to help him completely change his life going from extremely unhealthy to being in good health. Along with all the other volunteers, there was a group of IU Medical School volunteers who I interacted with on a daily basis, and they gave me a bunch of guidance to prepare me for medical school.
Along with all of that, I was able to shadow Dr. Nace who is a physician at the Pecar Hospital. It was amazing to see her interact with so many patients of different backgrounds, including being able to serve patients with many different languages. While shadowing we were able to discuss things such as how the food we served impacted the health of her patients. The thing that stood out to me most was how excited patients were to see Dr. Nace and I was really influenced by her care for her patients.
I would like to thank Jill Rogers and Dr. Wetzel for the opportunity to experience this internship. I would also like to thank Zachary Fawbush, Stephanie Santos, Kathy Keiner, and all of the other volunteers for creating such a fantastic workspace and fun summer.
