Day 7

Today was perhaps the most relaxed day so far. After spending some time in the office discussing the to-do list for the next few days as well as the plans for the Senior Citizen prom that took place tonight, Alexis and Lynn headed to the borough hall to make photocopies as Deborah and I ventured to the kitchen to receive the food delivery. I ended up dishing rice pudding into small cups, and Deborah took care of everything else. Alexis and Lynn came back, and we spent some more time in the kitchen, speaking with seniors about their senior citizen prom as well as our upcoming prom. Afterwards, we headed back to the office as Lynn and Deborah prepared to walk with the seniors for "Walk at Work Day." The seniors proceeded to walk around the building and to the track for 30 minutes as planned, and spent another 30 minutes in their usual exercise class with Lynn. During this time, Alexis and I were left in charge of answering the phone and watching over things in the office. After the exercise class, our next assignment was to fold the bulletins that Alexis and Lynn had made copies of in the morning. Just as we finished, it was time to serve today's lunch, which was Eggplant Rollatini and spaghetti. Clean-up took a while today, but we were able to leave right after, having had a relaxed day.

Day 6

Upon my arrival this morning, Lynn said that she had a favor to ask. She said that there was a shopping  cart from CVS outside of the building that had been left there last week and needed to be returned. Alexis and I tried to see if it would fit in my trunk, but to no avail. We ended up walking it over to CVS with no problem. When we got back to the senior center, Lynn told us that she had received a new computer monitor that she wanted us to help set up for her. With a few complications, we were able to set it up, saving her a lot of desk space, since the previous monitor looked as if it was from the 90's. We also cleaned out the supply closet, finding room for the books on the shelves that we had previously re-arranged. We then went to prepare lunch, which consisted entirely of cold food, so clean up was easy, too. Once we were done, we took stacks of magazines out to the curb to be picked up for disposal, and our day was done.

Day 5

Today was the most eventful day thus far at the Senior Center. The first thing we had to do was list ingredients of more chemicals-- Lynn had realized that we hadn't gone through the cleaning supplies that were in the kitchen. We finished this job quickly, unaware of our busy day to come. The lunch of the day was hamburgers with a side of potato salad and macaroni salad. That sounds easy enough, but we ended up receiving double the amount of food. This was a result of the fact that the Teaneck Senior Center was closed temporarily due to a gas leak. We tried solving this problem by offering double cheeseburgers to the seniors, which most of them took full advantage of. The leftover potato and macaroni salads were also put into containers, which the seniors also took full advantage of. Just when we thought that we had dealt with enough food for the day, there was a delivery of all kinds of pastries and breads that were leftovers from a local bakery. Everything looked so good, and Alexis and I were told that we could take some of the treats home, which was definitely a plus. However, we also had to divide the bread into separate paper bags for the seniors to take home. The pastries would be set out during the movie that they would be watching later in the day. We found some time to join in on Lynn's exercise class again as well, and although it was a busy day, the time sure did seem to fly.

Day 4

Since we had finished finding the ingredients of all of the cleaning chemicals yesterday, all we had to do today was write the product names and list the ingredients on labels. We placed the labels inside the cabinet where the chemicals were stored, and Lynn was very impressed with how organized it looked. We then headed over to the kitchen to bag bread for everyone's lunch. Exercise class began, so we decided that we would join again. After that, we went back to the kitchen and served lunch, which was BBQ chicken. This was a messy dish to clean up after, but once we were done we headed home for the day.

Day 3

Today, we continued to find the ingredients of all of the cleaning supplies in the closet, using one of the computers to do our research. We finally finished our long list and were ready to start preparing lunch. The lunch of the day was turkey with a side of sweet potato. Perhaps the most interesting part of the day was when one of the seniors carried out a conversation with me for what must have been an excess of 10 minutes about college and life in general. Since we were getting the hang of things, we had cleaned up with time to spare, and were able to go home about 15 minutes early.

Day 2

This morning, I arrived at the Senior Center at 8:30, just like yesterday. Lynn began to tell us that the state required that the ingredients of all of the cleaning chemicals they used be listed. She asked us if we could handle this task, and we agreed as she searched through her office for an extra notebook or paper. She ended up giving me money to buy one from CVS, and when I got back, Alexis and I started on our task. In the midst of this task, Deborah, who works at the senior center, asked if either one of us could figure out how to hook up a printer to the computer in the office. She said that the printer had been lying around for a while but they never got to hook it up. I left Alexis to continue listing ingredients, and I successfully hooked up the printer. Frank, who delivers the food for lunch, arrived right when I finished so Lynn, Alexis, Deborah, and I headed over to the kitchen to prepare the food. Today's food was ravioli, so Alexis and I were responsible for bagging slices of bread along with crackers and packets of salad dressing. Once that was done, we headed back into the main room as Lynn began her exercise class, which she asked us to join. The class, consisting entirely of women, was very happy to have us join them, and greeted us with a round of applause. One of the women told me to "Try to keep up", which got a big laugh from everyone including myself. The class was a mix of cardio and weights set to calming music, and I enjoyed participating. After the exercise class was over, we headed back to the kitchen. We proceeded to serve the ravioli with soup, meatballs, and a salad. We washed all of the dishes, and after that, we were done for the day.

Day 1

This morning, I arrived at the New Milford Senior Center a few minutes before 8:30, which was the time that I said I would arrive. Alexis arrived at just about the same time, and we walked in together. After speaking with Lynn shortly in her office, we headed over to the kitchen. She began by explaining the proper food safety measures that we had to take, and then handed gloves and a hairnet to each of us.  Our first task was to prepare a few of the side dishes for lunch, which included Mandarin oranges and Chow mein noodles, both of which we placed in small cups for distribution. Meanwhile, Lynn was struggling to figure out why her food thermometers were reading -200 degrees Fahrenheit for some of the hot dishes, but she eventually got one of them to display the correct readings. Then, as the seniors played their daily game of Bingo, Lynn showed us the book shelves, and told us that she'd love if we would organize them, so we put all of the books in alphabetical order by the last names of the authors. We also cleaned up the bulletin board by getting rid of any outdated flyers and hanging up a new one. Before we knew it, lunchtime came around. I was assigned the task of ladling the soup into styrofoam cups. Then, we formed an assembly line and put the entree, vegetables, and rice on trays for distribution. Following lunch, we took out the birthday cake from the fridge for one of the seniors, Rosemarie. We put candles on it and sang happy birthday, and Rosemarie was ecstatic, especially when told that her son had delivered the cake for her this morning! After a kiss from her husband, she blew out the candles and the cake was distributed for everyone to enjoy. The last thing we had to do was wash all of the dishes in three sinks: the first was for soaping, the next was for rinsing, and the third was for rinsing in bleach. After we dried all of the dishes, Lynn told us that we could go home. We made our way through the main room, where a Tai-chi class was in session, and headed home for the day. Time went very quickly while we were there, and I enjoyed helping out. Can't wait to see what we'll be doing tomorrow!