Early in the afternoon on Monday, June 11, We Care received a call from a trucker who had four pallets full of watermelons that had been rejected by their intended recipient.
The only problem with the shipment, he said, was that each pallet had a few broken melons, but the rest of the melons in the pallet were fresh, ripe and potentially delicious.
June 11, however, was a very warm, 90-degree day. And the four pallets of watermelon were located in the front of the semi-trailer and would have to be hand-carried down the trailer to be brought into We Care.
It is difficult, sometimes, for We Care to find enough volunteers on a moment’s notice to handle such labor-intensive jobs, especially with such hot weather, but the We Care staff did not want such a desirable commodity to go to waste.
Fortunately, the Christian Youth Center of Morris was having its second annual Local Missions Trip this week, where kids that participate in CYC spend the week at the facility (which is one of We Care’s neighbors at the CanalPort Community Center) and assist local agencies and churches in projects that need free labor. It was also fortunate that the project that was planned for Monday had not materialized, and the CYC kids were in need of someone to help.
We Care was then the grateful recipient of the labor of the 15 kids participating in CYC’s local missions trip. It took about an hour to unload, one by one, the watermelons from the semi. Many, many local families will benefit with a fresh, healthy, juicy watermelon in their homes thanks to their efforts.
