Banco de Alimentos

Jose Diaz

Before starting at UIC, we traveled to Costa Rica on the First Year Flames Abroad Program. While we were in Costa Rica, we did a activity to help at an organization called Banco de Alimentos de Costa Rica, who work to end hunger by connecting people in the community to healthy food.

Our group was in charge of separating food into bins. They had a whole warehouse full of food, dedicated to feed the people in need. In this warehouse we were given an overview of how to separate food and the reasons they separate the food, where do you put the food that is good, where you put the food that is bad, and how you know it’s bad. We were able to organize the food ourselves and we had to use teamwork and communication to work together. Ff course if we were confused about anything, we could ask the workers for help.

One thing I thought about after we were done was how people were so happy there and talkative to each other. It looked like a place where they seemed to enjoy themselves and are happy to help the community. We all enjoyed the activity, were happy to give back to a community while in Costa Rica, and wished our time had lasted a little longer.