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Blackout!

June 12, 2009 on 12:44 pm | In Main Category | No Comments

  In this modern world, a sudden loss of electricity can really throw us for a loop. In a high-volume food service operation like Open Hand, a power outage has the potential to be catastrophic when you consider how much of our day-to-day operation relies on electricity. We were reminded of this the other day when a transformer vault – I don’t pretend to know what that is – suddenly exploded. Without warning, all power to the building went out on an otherwise quiet Friday morning and if you wandered out onto Polk Street and looked north, you would have seen flames and black smoke shooting up from a manhole (some awesome pics, here).

Meanwhile, back at POH, staff and volunteers were busy making plans to pack meals by hand. A hand-crimping meal-lidder was located so that meals could be packed in foil containers and volunteers gathered to work under the feeble glow of emergency lights. No one complained, they simply put their heads down and got the job done.

Down in the Distribution department, Tim C. and the gang were busy patching together route sheets – a job usually accomplished with computers and printers – cutting and pasting together the guides that volunteers would use to deliver meals to clients. And in a final bit of adventure, appropriate given the days events, drivers managed to outfox a particularly unhelpful meter maid who had blocked access to our street. Defying the meter maids “orders” drivers made an end run to the garage, returning all vehicles to storage before anyone could stop them!

It was a crazy day for all and a challenging day for many and yet, the meals went out, as they always do, with love. We salute our dedicated staff and volunteers who went above and beyond the call for the sake of our mission.

Posted by: Dan