Packing Lunches for Anabaptist COVID-19 Response

“Help us feed the hard-working health workers on the front lines of the COVID19 pandemic,” reads the heading on the home page of the Anabaptist COVID-19 Response website. “Feed our Health Workers is focused on providing Med Staff Lunch Boxes for health workers on the front lines of the COVID19 epidemic. Feed our Health Workers is a project under the direction of Anabaptist COVID19 Response, a coalition of non-profits mobilizing with One Kingdom Community to serve our health workers.”

Several times a week, volunteers in my area pack lunches. We’re only a few hours away from New York City. I signed up to help this morning at Pleasant Valley Mennonite School in Ephrata.

When I get to the school, I join the other volunteers in front of the entrance. We stand on brightly colored tape, with spots marked every six feet.

At nine a.m., two of the organizers welcome us and give instructions. “Look at the number you’re standing on. That will be your position on the assembly line. We’ll be letting you in, one group at a time. Keep six feet apart. We’ll take your temperature, and then you’ll be given masks, gloves, aprons, and hairnets. No eating on the assembly line. If you have to adjust your mask, use your arm and not your hand.”

A woman named Rhoda is charge of the food packing. “We’re making sandwiches this morning. But we’re still waiting on the buns. Pray for the baker!”

Someone mentions we’re making over two thousand lunches. That means two thousand sandwich buns. I imagine a red-faced baker, peering anxiously inside an oven.

Rhoda then explains which group will do what inside. Those on the Yellow line go to one assembly line, those on the Blue line join another prep line.

“I’m glad she seems to know what’s happening,” I say to Sharon, who’s six feet away on my right. “I’m confused.” I check the number at my feet: B7. Okay, B7, B7, I think. Remember B7.

As we start moving forward, someone says, “Hi, Susan.” It’s my friend, Pauline! Or is it her sister, Christianne? Like me, she’s already wearing her homemade face mask.

“Hi,” I look again, yes, it’s definitely Pauline, back from Mexico, where she’s been working as a missionary. Like many others, she came back before international travel became impossible.

But there’s not much time for chitchat. We go into the building, go through the health screening, write our names and phone numbers on a paper, and get suited up.

Inside the school gym, there are tables covered with plastic tablecloths. Some volunteers are folding boxes or bagging vegetables and cookies.

B7’s spot is bagging sandwiches. There’s trays of cheddar cheese and tubs of sliced roast beef. “The buns will be here in five minutes,” says Rhoda.

Sure enough, the buns soon arrive, soft and golden. At the beginning of the food prep line, several guys slice open the buns, then more volunteers add a generous scoop of roast beef and a slice of cheddar cheese, the type that crumbles easily.

It’s like working at Arby’s. I can almost taste the curly fries…

But ultra fresh buns aren’t the easiest to fit into snug-fitting sandwich bags. “Oh, no, I left a thumbprint in that bun,” groans another bagger. “Oh, well, a thumbprint of love.”

The women working around me discuss homeschooling. One mom says, “I have an eight-year-old. And I’ve forgotten some of the math and English I learned in school!”

I asked if anyone heard about the farmer who had to get rid of two thousand pigs. “He couldn’t sell the pigs. So he said anyone who wanted a pig could come get it. Otherwise, he’d have to gas and compost them. But there were enough people willing to come get free pigs that he didn’t have to do that.”

No one else heard about the pigs, but everyone has heard about the disruptions on the food supply lines. Sharon says, “We’re dairy farmers. We’re glad we haven’t had to dump any milk yet.”

For the most part, we work in silence. The masks make talking more difficult.

When the sandwiches are finished, I move over to another line to help put “snack kits” in a larger boxes for transport.

The snack kits contain no sandwiches, instead they have a meat stick, veggies, fruit, peanut butter, Gogurt, granola bar, chips, water, coffee, and some encouraging literature with Scripture. My job is to put twelve kits inside a big cardboard box. It’s pretty easy until they start adding bigger bags of chips. “I can hardly close the boxes,” says Sharon.

An older couple is at the end of the line, closing the big boxes. “Oh dear, I just heard one of the chip bags pop. I guess someone will get stale chips!”

It’s nearly 12:30 p.m., and aside from a popped chip bag or two, everything is smoothly finishing. Volunteers are leaving gradually, just like the organizers want us to.

After the last kit is in the box, I take off my hairnet and apron, wash my hands, and go outside. I stop only to take a picture of the food we packed going into a truck that will go to New York City, full of lunches for America’s heroes.