Food bagging

This evening our church held its annual food bagging event.  100 plus volunteers organize themselves into teams of 11 or 12 and assemble sealed bags of a dried food mixture.  The ingredients that go into each bag are rice, soy protein, dried vegetables and a vitamin pack.  The assembly line process is very well thought out. Four people at the beginning of each line dump the ingredients into bags which are opened and held under a funnel by two people. Then two people weigh the bags adding or removing a little rice to get the weight right.  Next, two more people seal the bags and finally (and this was my job tonight) the last person pats the bags flat and packs them in cardboard boxes, 36 bags (180 meals) per box.  In years past my grandchildren and children have been on a team with me and they were fast.  We were either first or seconed team finished four years in a row.  Sadly, this year they were all involved in marching band and other stuff so I had to be on a team with lots of people my age (aka old).  So slow!  When the winning team finished their 16 boxes we had just finished our seventh.  Happily, I guess, we were saved further shame because the group who supplied all the ingredients and materials had miscalculated and we ran out of plastic bags.  Our goal was 25,000 meals.  Not sure how many we actually accomplished.  They gave us each an ice cream sandwich and sent us home.  Ah well, there's always next year.