Et cetera : Maple 2 Serves the Community with Two Admirable Sponsors

Maple 2 poses in front of the Bemidji Community Food Shelf.

By Gabriel Kazarian

AmeriCorps NCCC team Maple 2 is serving with two sponsors: the Bemidji Community Food Shelf (BCFS), and the Developmental Achievement Center (DAC) through August 3. The team has assisted both of their sponsors with various tasks to provide food to the Bemidji community and assist clients with disabilities over at the DAC.

So far at BCFS, the team has been busy maintaining the farm by pulling and removing weeds with hoes, hilling potatoes, harvesting crops such as spinach, carrots, onions, and broccoli. Every day Maple 2’s sponsors need the team’s assistance with stocking shelves, re-packaging food, cleaning the store/warehouse and the break rooms, assisting with filing and conducting interviews.

With the DAC, Maple 2 is serving with adults with various disabilities. The team has helped with landscaping projects by mowing their lawn, building a shed, and setting up group events to promote socialization amongst clients. In addition to helping with maintenance work, Maple 2 has bonded with the clients and made long lasting relationships, and served to provide a supportive, no-fail environment. Although the team has little experience helping those with disabilities, Maple 2 has managed to get clients to open up and have fun in group activities that otherwise may have been less interactive.

“The food shelf is a very important part of the community; we provide food to people who are suffering from short term crisis in their lives… Although people can use the Food Shelf twelve times a year, 70% of our clients use the Food Shelf only 4 times a year,” says Mary Mitchell, who is Maple 2’s sponsor at the BCFS.

Both of the sponsors in Bemidji aim to support the community in their own ways. It is the DAC’s mission to provide a positive environment where their clients can socialize, gain work experience, and work on living independently. This helps a minority of the community that is all too often neglected. At DAC, their goal is to provide food to people in need in the city of Bemidji. Aside from feeding the hungry, the Food Shelf provides numerous volunteer opportunities to people of all ages; this promotes the well-being of the Shelf’s farm, while teaching volunteers the values of sustainable living. Furthermore, this gives a chance for people who have retired to continue to stay active, and find ways to give back to the community.