Kingdom House - Day One

After my poor experience at Annie Malone, I transferred to Kingdom House. Even though I have
volunteered at Kingdom House before, the numerous amount of programs Kingdom House has to offer
means that I am constantly having new experiences while I am there. When I came that Wednesday (my
2nd day of May Project) they needed me to work in their market. The Market at Kingdom House is like a
mini store that is heavily discounted so that the Kingdom House community is able to buy healthy food
(including fresh produce) at a heavily discounted price. The Market is pretty small, about half the size of a
typical Burroughs classroom, but is equipped with a couple long shelves that contain cans, dry pasta, rice,
cereal, and the occasional miscellaneous snack, and a couple of fridges in the back that contain deli
meats, dairy products, fresh produce, and meats. When customers come to the market, they pick up a
shopping basket against the wall and then shop their hearts out...to an extent. Certain products such as
soups, olive oil, meat, and milk have a limit on them so that there will still be remaining product by the
time more customers come in the afternoon. After customers finish shopping, they come to me, give me
their first and last name and the amount of people in their household (so that Kingdom House can
accurately tally the number of people they serve). I then ring up the total. Seniors, or people over 55
years, get all of the dry foods (rice, pasta, cans, etc) for free, produce is $.50 per pound, and the cost of
all of the other items varies per person. After I finish totaling their purchase, customers have the option of
paying by cash or by EBT. I repeated this process from the time the market opened at 9 until noon when I
left to get lunch.


After lunch, I helped Samantha in the senior center that is located across the street from the main
Kingdom house building. I had helped Samantha at the end of last summer and I love being around her
because she is the type of person who just radiates happiness.

At the senior center the first day I folded papers and stuffed envelopes that they could distribute at their
next senior meeting. The envelopes included mileage reimbursement sheets which are very helpful to the
senior volunteers who participate in the government Senior helper program. After I finished that, I went
home for the day.


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