Interviews

LARRY ST. JOHN

Larry has been volunteering with Common Heart at Mill Grove for a little bit over a year. Every week Larry drives his mother, Carol, to the food pantry where they both volunteer every Monday evening. He found out about the food pantry through his mom because she goes to church at the same campus where food pantry takes place. Larry is an extremely outgoing and selfless individual, so the food pantry was a perfect fit for him. Plus, it’s a great opportunity for his mom to be active in the church’s community.

Larry is about 40 years old and has remained active throughout his life. Currently he likes to go to the gym and disc golf. A typical night at food pantry for Larry consists of heavy lifting, bagging meat, sorting food once the truck has been unloaded, and assisting customers to their car. His favorite task at the food pantry is bagging meat because he gets a chance to chat with one of his close friends, Bob. Once the last customer has been through, he takes his mom home so she can get in bed. The food pantry does tend to run a little late in the evening.

When asked one thing he would change about food pantry, he pointed out that a majority of the volunteers are older and cannot handle the heavy lifting. He clarified that their presence is NOT an issue, but he wishes there were more people able to handle the heavier stuff. His final answer was more volunteers who work hard and can handle the work. An interesting thing about Larry is that he enjoys building things, an inventor of sorts. He expressed interest in creating a couple machines to help some of the work at food pantry go more smoothly. I look forwards to seeing Larry as I continue to volunteer at the Common Heart Food Pantry at Mill Grove.

I chose to interview Larry because he is an exemplary volunteer, and he was able to meet outside of the Food Pantry time frame.

I had the opportunity to conduct my interview with Larry at my house. He came over one Monday before food pantry.

RICK HEPNER

After a long Monday night, I got a picture with Rick before we left for the evening.

Rick is the weekly lead at the Common Heart Food Pantry at Mill Grove. Whenever there is an issue that needs to be resolved Rick is the go-to guy. He has been volunteering with Common Heart for about seven years now, and he has been the head guy at Mill Grove for about five of those years. In my interview with Rick I tried to ask more broad, bigger picture, questions about the effectiveness of the food pantry and where he thinks it’s headed in the future.

Rick is the kind of guy that you can ALWAYS count on, no matter what. He gets there early every Monday night, and he’s always the last one to leave. All throughout the time he spends there he stays busy. Rick is able to be so dependable because he feels like service back to the community is a duty more than anything. His philosophy is giving back to the community is one of the important things an able-bodied person can do.

One of Rick’s main responsibilities is that he is in charge of making sure volunteers know what they’re doing and are able to complete their job. The toughest part of his job is staying flexible because each week there are new volunteers who need to be properly trained AND there is a plethora of issues that need to be resolved in order for the food pantry to remain operational. Rick states the two most important traits a volunteer can possess is flexibility and a willingness to work hard.

While Rick is extremely proud of the food pantry’s ability to make a difference in the local community, he feels as though the efforts are only band-aiding the bigger issue. He cites that the food pantry provides help, but does nothing in terms of finding out why people are at the food pantry or how to help them out of that situation. A great way to attempt to solve the bigger issue would be to dive in and find what’s really causing the issue deep down. Common Heart has recently started a campaign to address this. Finally, Rick wishes everyone knew more about what they can do in their community to help out. The more volunteers, the quicker the work will go. The more people come to receive food, a greater impact is made.

I chose to interview Rick because he is extremely devoted to Common Heart, and he is a great leader who I can learn a lot from.