Cars line up along the street and police help direct traffic at the food give away at Tree of Life Ministry on August 2, 2012.  Submitted photo.

(Note: Tree of Life Ministry serves the Rosebud Reservation and is based out of Mission, SD. Tree of Life Ministry gave out over 30,000 pounds of food to 800 families on August 2, 20112.   The following is a summary of the work completed on August 2 by Rev. Russell Masartis, Director of Tree of Life.)

We did it!   The 2 trucks from "Feed the Children" arrived in the evening. Our staff arrived at 8 am the next morning along with the Volunteers in Mission (VIM) team. After a quick devotional, we unloaded the first trailer - 53 feet long with 15,463 pounds of food packaged in 800 boxes.  The drivers, Roy and Wayne, were worried that we would not have enough room to store the leftovers because the best give away has been 400 families in one day.  Well, we doubled that, and in only 3 hours!!!!

One of the ranking city police officers came to check out all of the commotion.  He decided to help since we were so busy.  The officer called the city garage and had them bring over 100 orange cones to help direct traffic.  The mayor of Mission, South Dakota called and asked about what we were doing, and decided that everything sounded great to him.  

Everyone worked without a break from 8:15am until 12:30pm.  We gave away every one of the 1,200 boxes.  Our staff then went around and cleaned up every scrap of paper and piece of plastic wrap, and moved every empty pallet so that the grounds were spotless.  The city picked up all the cones and one worker stayed for a while to wave off latecomers.  

We did it!  Olympic GOLD work -- 30,719 pounds of food to 800 families in 3 hours!  My digital pedometer registered 16,317 steps before we closed down the operation.  The Thrift Shop Boutique did their normal business, and the construction ministry still sent out work teams.  

The staff and volunteers are saying, "That was fun.  When are we going to do that again?"

Blessings!

Rev. Russell Masartis

Tree of Life Ministry