I just want to contrast this with the "charity efforts" I saw on Big Brother last night. (My wife watches it, not me usually) They made a whole segment out of packing relief bags for the Red Cross. They put together maybe 50-100 bags, tops. They setup the work area with Red Cross labeled crates, which the supplies didn't really come in since they were mostly filled with fake grass like an easter basket with the supplies on top, tables, the whole deal. The effort put into prepping the set was 10x more work than the people actually did before patting themselves on the back for "helping".
Reminds me of either earlier this year or last year (don't watch either, wife), the person exiting the house was asked to put on a mask while the host sat in her chair. Completely illogical...that person has been quarantined in a house for weeks, whereas Julie Chen has been out and about. Wouldn't it make more sense for her to have to put on a mask?
I signed up to volunteer packing emergency meals once... It involved measuring out several bulk ingredients and packaging them into single serving sizes, to make them 'easier to distribute'. They had to bring so much stuff on-site and set up a complicated assembly line, moving a ton of furniture, generating a lot of plastic waste, so many cardboard boxes in and out. I was 99% sure it would have been significantly less effort if their own staff just packaged everything themselves. I didn't really know what I was signing up for but it felt pretty scammy because they asked us to donate money at the end.
I don't know much about that situation but I can tell you that measuring and putting all of the ingredients into little cups before i start cooking streamlines things considerably. I am able to follow the videos perfectly.
I'm sure the packaging was useful for the recipients (just add water and serve a nutritious meal) but it was a whole production to bring all the raw ingredients in and teach volunteers how to make these meals. It was not efficient at all. It was like the whole thing was an act to make people feel good about 'volunteering' but we were just doing busywork and then asked to also donate money to help their cause.
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u/DadJokeBadJoke 18d ago
I just want to contrast this with the "charity efforts" I saw on Big Brother last night. (My wife watches it, not me usually) They made a whole segment out of packing relief bags for the Red Cross. They put together maybe 50-100 bags, tops. They setup the work area with Red Cross labeled crates, which the supplies didn't really come in since they were mostly filled with fake grass like an easter basket with the supplies on top, tables, the whole deal. The effort put into prepping the set was 10x more work than the people actually did before patting themselves on the back for "helping".