I think this is my year!

You may not know this, but I volunteer at my semi-local food pantry every week and I've been doing this for around a year now. I volunteer my time because I receive a food box every month and I firmly believe in paying it forward.

I don't have money to donate to food pantries or excess food, what I have is time and that is just as important.

Anyway, I started volunteering last summer and I didn't really think it would lead me on a journey of self discovery, but that is exactly where I am.

Last October I was asked to participate in a Voices Focus Group where I was asked to speak about my experiences with my food pantry and my history with pantries and what concerns I had about the future and the like. I showed up and impressed the team with eloquence and wit and passion for pantries.

Yeah, I didn't know I had a passion for food pantries until people from the Oregon Food Bank told me that we are in danger of budget cuts and donation cuts. Needless to say that lit a fire in my soul and I let my words flow (evidently speaking is a latent talent of mine that I've only discovered within the last 5 years or so.)

The lead guy, Nate, and I stayed in contact via email for months and then he called to tell me that my story had made the final cut and would be published in the Voices yearly report. Me. My story was one of 15 selected out of 84 people or so.

I made an impact.

Then things got even more unreal for me; Nate wanted to film my story. I would be one of three people chosen to tell their stories.

Wow was all I could think. Then I thought this was some massive cosmic joke because I'm a pessimist like that. And then the nerves hit me like a car wreck. But I made a promise to myself 8 years ago when I met my father for the first time in my life that I would never let Fear stand in the way of me doing something that could be life-changing.

So I slammed the door on Fear and told Nate I was in. He and his friend/videographer Lindsay came out for 2 days and filmed an intense hour+ interview and a day and a half of additional footage called B-roll. It was a blast and also exhaustive because I was opening my heart and soul to share a story that I've mostly kept to myself all of these years. Now my story would be shown to all of Oregon.

The film premiered on April 16th at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem and I spent that entire day keeping my nerves locked behind a door, lest I go crazy and got arrested and made the state news for alarming law makers. I want to make the state news for wowing law makers.

I also spent that day talking to said law makers and meeting other volunteers from food pantries all over the state. It was absolutely fantastic, and I even got to meet the CEO of the Oregon Food Bank and she thanked me for my openness and willingness to share my story.

My personal highlight of that day was when a young man came up to me and thanked me because he is currently in a similar situation and he thought he was alone. It was incredibly humbling to interact with the impact I'm making.

I can't stress this enough: I'm not alone, you are not alone, we are not alone. Our ultimate fear, as humans, is to be alone, but we are not. As long as we are brave enough to stand up and talk about what we are going through we are never alone.

I spoke with Nate earlier this week and he said that this video has crushed view counts and page hits. It has been viewed around 3,500 times and my story itself has reached around 10,000 people.

I can't express how blessed I feel that my life can connect to so many people.

And something even bigger might be on the horizon...