On Hiatus

Still sick with the crud, but a friend sent me a wonderful quote to share. Thank you, Angela!

"Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." ~ Christopher Robin to Pooh

Confessions of a Multi-Genre Author

Today's guest is Cindy K. Greene, fellow Bookspa friend and Wild Rose Press author. With a talent for writing that can't be contained by any one publisher, Cindy has books, novellas, and short stories available from four publishing houses, and across at least as many genres, with more planned. Please welcome Cindy today as she tells us how she keeps it all straight!

Confessions of a Multi-Genre Author

I spent a good deal of time contemplating what I should say to Liana’s readers ever since we scheduled my blog date. And it never fails that my greatest inspirations hit me in the shower. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to invent something for writers to record those bits of inspiration before the steam settles? Hopefully I’ll remember everything that went through my mind.

This of course leads me to my topic at hand—my role as a multi-genre author. When you start in this life we call the writing game, one of the first things you learn (after how to utilize proper POV, of course) is that as a published author you must brand yourself. No not like cattle—more like Frito Lay, Nestle, or Ford. That means you sell your name more than any particular book. When you pick up a Stephen King or Nora Roberts novel, you know what you’re getting before even reading the blurb. Readers need to get to know you—how you write and what you write. In the large New York publishing houses, their authors typically have to BRAND themselves and only write in but one genre. But…what about those of us who love to skip around and experiment in the genres?

EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE

There are some big names who jump around in the genres. James Patterson is known for his mystery/suspense/thrillers. But wait a minute, he’s also penned some award-winning young adult titles and even a series of romances. Hmm. Meg Cabot also comes to mind. She writes for the young adult, the middle grade kids and contemporary romance for adults. She even has a couple historicals under her belt. And let’s not forget her new vampire novel; although, I hear some people would like to forget it.

When I’m asked: ‘What do you write? What’s your genre?’ I seriously have to make out a list. And I make no excuses for it. I love skipping from genre to genre, stretching my writer’s legs or fingers—or to be more precise my imagination and my writer’s niche. It keeps the writing fresh and exciting. I finally branded myself in a general sense with ‘Bringing Sweet Romance to the Heart.’ My subgenres include: Inspirational, Young Adult, American Victorian Historical, Western Historical, Mainstream Contemporary, and Romantic Suspense. I’ve even written a high fantasy. I told you it was a lot.

So, I’ve been asked, ‘how do you write in all those genres? I feel like I’d get confused.’ Well, here’s my confession—it’s very easy to get confused. If you write in several genres you have to go through steps to bring it all together. Let me take you through an example.

I recently started working on my latest YA story, Sold My Soul to a Frog. In doing so, I had to purge from my mind the voice and tone of my just finished mystery. I was now an almost eighteen-year-old girl full of insecurities while watching my life spin upside down. So, first step, I have to read some YA books. Meg Cabot is my favorite (yes, I know I already mentioned her). I also enjoy Polly Shulman although she’s only written two books for the YA. I listen to music that’s for the young or young at heart. And then I watch lots of teen movies. Basically, I get into the mindset of the American teen. I do the same thing for whatever genre I’m writing. It’s like I am priming myself to write. You see there is a tone, a set a verbiage that is necessary to each sub-genre. I have to get myself into that place before I start writing. Now if you only write one genre that isn’t really a problem. No matter what you are reading or watching it won’t affect your writing. You’ve trained yourself how to write your genre. But when you write several genres, you have to equip yourself to write many different ways and your muse needs a reminder as to what hat to put on today.

Okay, now I’ve confessed. Now let me offer you readers a prize. First I’m running a great Christmas contest on my blog. All you have to do is watch the book trailer for my holiday romance, All I Want for Christmas, and send me an email. And if anyone is interested in getting a free read today, send me an email at cindy@cindykgreen.com. Put FREE READ in the subject and let me know if you want the humorous contemporary, My Grand Epiphany or the historical western, Second Chances.

Here is a little piece from my best friend’s romance, All I Want for Christmas. Read another excerpt on my website.

Blurb: Best Friends or True Love? Only Santa Knows.

Kathryn Graham hates Christmas. She hates the snow, the decorations, the whole nine yards. Nick Pringle on the other hand can’t get enough of the season. He may be her best friend and fellow writer at Redburn Weekly Magazine, but sometimes his exuberance gets on her very last nerve. Now they’ve been assigned to cover the orphan toy drive story. It’s just a puff piece not the serious journalism Kathryn hopes for, but maybe—as Nick says—there are no old stories just new angles. Nick Pringle has been in love with Kathryn practically since the day they met. When he realizes that she’s lost her Christmas spirit, he figures he’s just the guy to help her find it again. He enacts a plan to send her anonymous gifts from Secret Santa, but will any of this really make a difference in her? Will she ever see him as anything more than her smart-aleck partner even after their passionate kisses? Then again maybe he’ll get what he wants for Christmas after all.

Excerpt: (Kat and Nick having a platonic afternoon at the movies.)

Halfway through the film, Nick’s fingers brushed over Kathryn’s wrist and a surge whipped through her like an electrical charge. His hand ended up on her knee, and he leaned over close to her ear. “You have any more of those Milkduds?”

“Huh?” Oh, candy. He just wanted more snacks. Well, of course, what other reason would he have for touching her like that?

“Here,” she whispered and held out the container to him. His face remained close to hers, his warm hand still molded to the shape of her knee. She accidentally moved in too close and her forehead bumped his cheek. Looking up at him, Kathryn saw he wasn’t smiling. His eyes had grown serious and all thoughts of candy dissipated. His attention dropped to her mouth and suddenly Kathryn couldn’t swallow. Could he possibly be considering kissing her? Just then, he turned his attention back to the movie and lifted his hand from her knee.

An unexplainable inclination took over as Kathryn pushed his hand back to her knee. His face whipped back to her. Questions filled his features. His chest moved up and then down. He smoothed his hand over her pants from her knee to her thigh and back again. Her skin pebbled under the material at his touch. This was soon followed by heat tingling from her stomach to the tips of her toes.

She leaned in towards him and he met her halfway. And just like that their lips met. Giddiness spun through Kathryn’s head with sparks tingling her skin. The kiss was light and sweet yet searing all at once. Lucidity began to return to her the next moment. What was she doing? Oh, right, she was kissing Nick Pringle. She was kissing a co-worker. Worse yet, she was making out with her best friend. What was she thinking? She had to stop and yet it was the last thing she wanted to do. The whole idea was ludicrous. An outrageous act and yet somehow her body’s sole response was that it wanted more. Whoa! Had it been that long since she’d had a date? Time to reign in those annoying hormones which threatened to take over her sanity.

She broke off the kiss and rested her hand against his chest. She could feel his heart speeding at the rate of a train. A train wreck is more like it. Ay-yi-yi! How was she going to get herself out of this one?

Available at Champagne Books, All Romance e-books and Amazon.

****
Cindy K. Green is a multi-published author with degrees in History and Education. Previously a middle school English & History teacher, she now homeschools her own children and writes in several genres: Inspirational, Contemporary, YA, Suspense and Historical romance. Find out more about Cindy and her books at http://www.cindykgreen.com/.

Maggie Toussaint Talks About Muddy Waters

Today's guest is mystery and romance author Maggie Toussaint, inveterate kayaker and author of the recently released romantic suspense novel, Muddy Waters. I had the pleasure of meeting Maggie on the Cruise with Your Muse conference cruise last year, and we had a delightful visit at a conference cocktail party in a dark, dungeon-like bar, one of many themed bars on the ship, with lots of black lights and gothic sculptures lurking in the corners. I apologize in advance for not being tech savvy enough to post all the wonderful pictures Maggie provided, so I'll post them over on the sidebar for today--complete with captions :). But here in the post proper, we have the book cover for Muddy Waters, and the photo that inspired the story, and then Maggie herself. Welcome, Maggie!

Predators lurk in the moss-edged shadows of the deep South. Hungry gator eyes rise above the muddy water’s surface, biding their time, watching for hapless prey. Water moccasins and rattlesnakes favor the wooded shoreline, lush with thick vegetation and hiding places.

And yet the natural beauty of the same setting fairly takes your breath away. Centuries old cypress trees guard the shore, wildflowers grow in unfettered abundance, exotic birds call out, sometimes mournfully, sometimes in a shrill cry like a wounded person. In the pregnant stillness will suddenly break forth the sharp rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker pounding into a tree for bugs.

Threaded through the plants and animals is life-giving water, from the mighty Altamaha which flows ever eastward to the Atlantic Ocean to the salty seawater which pushes inland twice a day in the diurnal tide cycle. With such changeable currents, the water bottom stirs, adding silt and sand to the water column. This opaque mirror of this water perfectly reflects the sky, the light, and the shadows, but it also conceals everything below the water’s surface.

In such a beautiful and yet dangerous place, a writer with an overactive imagination might easily embrace the “what if” line of thinking. What if a two-legged predator lurked in those dark places? What if that person had a gun? What if their target was approaching in a slow boat?
This precise what-if moment lent itself to a turning point in my latest romantic suspense release, MUDDY WATERS. In the book, the wetland setting adds to the suspense by providing that brooding sense of danger in the thick shadows, adding to that sense of someone watching you.
My heroine Roxie Whitaker traveled the world with her missionary parents but put down roots in her grandmother’s coastal town of Mossy Bog. Her passion for preserving the town’s history ignites simmering resentment. Helping out an absentee neighbor leads to an awkward situation when he finds out. Putting her stamp on the real estate business she inherits upsets Gran’s friends. And that’s where the story starts.

Sloan Harding left Mossy Bog as soon as he was able. He never wanted to return to the town where his father had been the town drunk, where he’d been one quick step ahead of the law in his bad boy days. If not for a kindly neighbor who’d encouraged him to join the Army, he would most likely be spending the rest of his life behind bars.

But a hole in the roof of his ancestral home draws him back to Mossy Bog. Awash in memories, he decides to put to rest the ghosts of his past by searching for his alleged lost inheritance. What he hadn’t counted on was a strong physical attraction to the girl next door. What he hadn’t counted on was the townspeople still seeing him through the same accusing eyes all these years later.

Here’s an abridged excerpt from MUDDY WATERS:

Sloan dipped the paddle into the shallow water of the man-made canal. The kayak glided across the smooth surface like a dream. The vaulted tree branches lent the historic canal a cathedral-like feeling.

Though the water they traversed was less than three feet deep, the ever present mud obscured the water’s clarity. Roxie rested her paddle across her lap and glanced at him over her shoulder. “When I traveled with my parents, I felt so off-balance. I would start to feel the rhythms of a place, and we’d be off to a new town. Living with Gran in Mossy Bog saved me. I missed my parents, but I found myself.”

He considered her words, testing them, trying them on for size. “Sounds like Lavinia was home, not the town.”

“That could be. But it’s more than that. Not having to move every six to twelve months gave me the chance to be me. Gran provided the stability I craved, but this place by the sea, it healed my heart. Gran’s gone now, and I could pick up stakes and move anywhere in the world, but why would I? This is my home.”

Her truth resonated deep within him.

Muddy waters. He wasn’t just crossing them, he lived in them. Gators trolled beneath the murky surface, waiting for him to display weakness.

His everyday life was far from this place, this woman. But he could adapt. A glance at his watch confirmed what he knew. As much as he wanted this idyllic moment to never end, both of them had places to be. “I hate to mention this, because I would be happy to stay here all day, but we need to head back.”

Roxie sighed. “I wish it was Monday already.”

They paddled the tandem kayak steadily through the lush setting, a gentle breeze stirring the tree leaves and airy swags of Spanish moss overhead.

Suddenly Roxie stopped paddling, glancing around.

“What?” he asked.

“Do you feel it?” she whispered. “I’m sure someone’s out here watching us.”

Adrenaline shot through him. He hurled forward in his seat, giving her a hard shove. “Get down!”

A split second later, a gunshot rang out. A bullet thwacked into the trees about head high. “Stay down,” Sloan ordered, reaching for the pistol strapped to his ankle.

“Hey! There are people over here!” Roxie yelled. “Stop shooting.”

“Roxie,” he hissed. “Stay down!”

Sloan cursed himself for letting his guard down. He quickly appraised the wooded canal. No shooter visible on the banks, but they didn’t have to be close with a rifle. His mission crystallized.
Protect Roxie.

Neutralize the shooter.

She glanced over her shoulder at his handgun, disbelief marring her face. “You’ve brought a gun? Here? Are you nuts?”

Heart hammering, he beached the craft on the soft bank and tugged her out, tucking her behind a cypress tree. “Don’t move.”

Review from Mary Gramlich, The Reading Reviewer: Great book, wonderful mystery and a red hot love story underlying it. Roxie and Sloan really mix it up in and out of the bedroom and that is what makes for a great romance. You can’t ask for more than that now can you?

Buy Muddy Waters in digital format: Kindle and Wild Rose Press
Buy Muddy waters in print: Wild Rose Press and Amazon

Maggie Toussaint
http://www.maggietoussaint.com/

Women Died for the Right to Vote -- Exercise Yours!

Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity. ~Quoted by a male doctor who examined Alice Paul when the government wanted her to be seen as suicidal for her hunger strike in an effort to gain women the right to vote.

This comes from an article by Jone Johnson Lewis, at About.com. If you don't do anything else today, make sure you GET OUT AND VOTE!

There's an email circulating that tells of the brutal treatment in 1917 at Occoquan, Virginia, prison, of women who had picketed the White House as part of the campaign to win the vote for women. The point of the email: it took a lot of sacrifice to win the vote for women, and so women today should honor their sacrifice by taking our right to vote seriously, and actually getting to the polls. The author of the article in the email, though the emails usually omit the credit, is Connie Schultz of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland.

Is the email true? a reader asks -- or is it an urban legend? It sure sounds exaggerated -- but it's not.

Alice Paul led the more radical wing of those who were working for women's suffrage in 1917. Paul had taken part in more militant suffrage activity in England, including hunger strikes that were met with imprisonment and brutal force-feeding methods. She believed that by bringing such militant tactics to America, the public's sympathy would be turned towards those who protested for woman suffrage, and the vote for women would be won, finally, after seven decades of activism.

And so, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and others separated in America from the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), headed by Carrie Chapman Catt, and formed the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU) which in 1917 transformed itself into the National Woman's Party (NWP).

While many of the activists in the NAWSA turned during World War I either to pacifism or to support of America's war effort, the National Woman's Party continued to focus on winning the vote for women. During wartime, they planned and carried out a campaign to picket the White House in Washington, DC. The reaction was, as in Britain, strong and swift: arrest of the picketers and their imprisonment. Some were transferred to an abandoned workhouse located at Occoquan, Virginia. There, the women staged hunger strikes, and, as in Britain, were force-fed brutally and otherwise treated violently.

I've referred to this part of woman suffrage history in other articles, notably when describing the history of the suffragist split over strategy in the last decade of activism before the vote was finally won.

Feminist Sonia Pressman Fuentes documents this history in her article on Alice Paul. She includes this re-telling of the story of Occoquan Workhouse's "Night of Terror," November 15, 1917:Under orders from W. H. Whittaker, superintendent of the Occoquan Workhouse, as many as forty guards with clubs went on a rampage, brutalizing thirty-three jailed suffragists. They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, and left her there for the night. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed, and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate Alice Cosu, who believed Mrs. Lewis to be dead, suffered a heart attack. According to affidavits, other women were grabbed, dragged, beaten, choked, slammed, pinched, twisted, and kicked. (source: Barbara Leaming, Katherine Hepburn (New York: Crown Publishers, 1995), 182.)

Related Resources:A firsthand account of this is in Doris Stevens' Jailed for Freedom (New York: Liveright Publishing, 1920. (Gutenberg text)

William and Mary Lavender told the story of the treatment of the pickets in American History magazine in 2003.

The movie Iron Jawed Angels focuses on this period of the woman suffrage movement.

An image of Emmeline Pankhurst, who led the militant British woman suffragists, including hunger strike tactics, which inspired Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party.

Sewall-Belmont House, home of the National Woman's Party, is now a museum which includes many archives of these events.

The Library of Congress presents some photos of women suffrage prisoners: Suffrage Prisoners

Suggested Reading

Women's Suffrage - 1900-1920

Alice Paul

Congressional Union

Suggested Reading

Militants Split Over Strategy

The Pankhursts

Suffrage Timeline

For more information on women's history, go to Jone Johnson Lewis, at About.com.

Browsing Old Cemeteries

Got this from a friend, and I though it perfect for today. Happy Halloween everyone!

Browsing Old Cemeteries

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany , New York :
Born 1903--Died 1942.
Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the
car was on the way down.
It was.
=============================
In a Thurmont, Maryland , cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist, all dressed up and no
Place to go.
=============================
On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in
East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia :
Here lies Ezekial Aikle, Age 102. Only The
Good Die Young.
=============================
In a London , England cemetery:
Here lies Ann Mann, Who lived an old maid
But died an old Mann. Dec. 8, 1767
=============================
In a Ribbesford, England , cemetery:
Anna Wallace
The children of Israel wanted bread, And
The Lord sent them manna. Clark Wallace
Wanted a wife, And the Devil sent him Anna.
===============================
In a Ruidoso, New Mexico , cemetery:
Here lies Johnny Yeast... Pardon him
For not rising.
===============================
In a Uniontown, Pennsylvania , cemetery:
Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake.
Stepped on the gas instead of the brake.
==============================
In a Silver City , Nevada , cemetery:
Here lays The Kid.
We planted him raw.
He was quick on the trigger
But slow on the draw.
================================
A lawyer's epitaph in England :
Sir John Strange.
Here lies an honest lawyer,
And that is Strange.
=================================
John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne,
England , cemetery:
Reader, if cash thou art in want of any,
Dig 6 feet deep and thou wilt find a Penny.
==================================
In a cemetery in Hartscombe , England :
On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle went
Out of tune.
==================================
Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls ,
Vermont :
Here lies the body of our Anna,
Done to death by a banana.
It wasn't the fruit that laid her low,
But the skin of the thing that made her go.
==================================
On a grave from the 1880s in Nantucket ,
Massachusetts :
Under the sod and under the trees,
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there's only the pod.
Pease shelled out and went to God.
==================================
In a cemetery in England :
Remember man, as you walk by,
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, so shall you be.
Remember this and follow me.
To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:
To follow you I'll not consent.
Until I know which way you went.

Have Mercy on Kids Who Stutter

Did you know that Friday was International Stuttering Awareness Day? Three million other Americans, or approximately 1% of the population, stutters. That said, my guest today is Ms. Pamela Mertz, who also has a brilliant and heartfelt blog...Make Room For The Stuttering. Right now she's posting a series on women who stutter. I encourage all of you to check it out.

Have Mercy on Kids Who Stutter

Imagine being an 11-year-old, in sixth grade. There are 30 kids in the class. The teacher takes attendance at the beginning of the period, and does it in a fairly traditional way. She calls each student's last name alphabetically, and each kid has to say "here" or "present."

No big deal, right? This is played out in classrooms all across the country.

The 11-year-old's last name begins with "S", so he has to wait while the other kids' names are called. It's always done the same way too, starting with the "A"s, never with "Z."

Waiting, this kid does what he always does. He focuses on what he is going to say and what will happen when he says it. His palms start to get sweaty and his heart starts to pound. He can feel his face grow really hot and realizes he is squirming in his seat.

He is thinking, "Please, not today, please not today, please let it be OK today." But he knows that the same thing is going to happen.

He wishes he was sick and could go to the nurse's office.

Then he hears the teacher say "Stasick." He decides to say "here," which might go easier than it did yesterday. He opens his mouth, says "hu-hu-hu-hhhhh- here" and his eyes squeeze shut. He hears the teacher call the next kid's name.

Maybe it won't happen today. Nah, he hears it, the snickers from the kids sitting behind him. Then the skinny kid with big ears whispers loudly, "Spastic Stasick, he can't t-t-t-t-talk."
The kid tries to shrink down in his seat as he hears the kids laughing at him, just quietly enough so that the teacher doesn't hear it. She never does. He has thought about telling her, but knows that will just make things worse.

It's bad enough that he is pulled out of his classroom twice a week to go to speech. When he is pulled out, (and it's always during math or science, the classes he likes) he hears the kids whisper, "There goes spastic Stasick with the b-b-b-b-babies learning how to talk".
He can't talk to his speech teacher about the teasing either; he only gets 20 minutes with her and there is usually another speech kid in the room.

There is no way the kid can tell his mom, because she always tells him to slow down and think about what he is trying to say before he talks. The kid keeps thinking, "No one understands me."
Lunch time is the worst. No one sits with him, and when kids walk by, they snicker and laugh. A couple of times, the skinny kid with big ears bumped into him on purpose, knocking him into the wall and making him drop his stuff. The kid and his friends start yelling, "Spastic can't walk either." That gets other kids laughing, including girls.

This kid stutters. He dreads being called on in class. He never raises his hand, even when he knows an answer, and is teased a lot. He is called names, left out socially and sometimes pushed. He does not know anyone else who talks like him and is really starting to hate school.
Kids who stutter get teased and bullied. Kids can be cruel, especially in middle school. Most people do not understand stuttering, because they have never met someone who stutters. Only about 1 percent of the population stutters and it's usually boys.

If you know a kid who stutters, know this: It's not his fault. Stuttering is an involuntary stoppage of normal speech flow. It can be hereditary and some research suggests that it is a neurological disorder. There is no known cure yet for stuttering, but therapy with someone who understands stuttering can help, especially with feelings of shame, embarrassment and isolation.

Kids who stutter are just like anyone else, they just talk differently. It is not OK to tease or bully a kid who stutters. We have heard enough in the news lately about what happens when bullying is left unchecked.

Friday was International Stuttering Awareness Day. The only way to raise awareness about stuttering is to talk about it. It will sure make it easier for the kids.

To learn more, visit The National Association for Young People Who Stutter, the National Stuttering Association, and The College of Saint Rose. Or Pamela's blog, Make Room for the Stuttering.

Feeding the Homeless -- A Shift in the Warehouse

A hungry stomach can not hear. ~Jean de la Fontaine, French Poet, 1621-1695

Last Saturday I went with my church to volunteer at the local food bank. It was an eye-opening experience, and one I hope to repeat regularly. You know me, I’m all about food and feeding people, so this kind of thing is right up my alley. A couple dozen of us—singles, couples, and families with kids--showed up for a three-hour stint in the warehouse, inspecting and repacking food for distribution to those in need. Ahead of us, just on their way out the door, was a group of about the same size from Gannon University.

I was startled when, after our group arrived, one of the young men in the Gannon group gave up his chair and rolled it over for me to sit in. Chivalry does still exist in some parts of the world. Unfortunately, instead of taking a moment to appreciate that fact, after I thanked him and he left, I turned to the friend I had arrived with and asked, “Do I look that old?”

I didn’t sit in the chair. I spend most of my time sitting. I had come for a workout…and a workout I got.

Our first assignment was to watch a 13-minute video on how to recognize foods that the Food Bank can not accept. For instance, any food that has been packed in the same box or container with any open cleaning products must be considered contaminated and thrown out. There’s no way the food bank can risk food contamination.

So if you make donations to your local food bank, or supervise collections for food drives and such at your church or school, please, please, please separate the stuff with chemicals in it from the stuff for people to eat, just to be safe, or all of your hard work and good intentions may go for nothing.

Also, as much as they would like to, the Food Bank can not accept any home-canned goods. We all know they taste the best, because they’re made with love, but unless they are commercially sealed, they are a no-go at the Food Bank.

So make sure you give your excess home-canned goods to your family and friends. If you don’t have enough friends, you can send some to me…I love home-canned anything :). I would also be able to use it in my soup (and now baking) ministry for the homeless shelter.

I’m serious. If you have home-canned stuff you want to get rid of, email me at Liana (at) lianalaverentz.com and we’ll work something out…a win-win for everyone.

But back to the Food Bank. Any packages that were open and therefore might have been touched by bugs or rodents (face it, where there’s food, there’s bugs and rodents) had to be thrown out as well. But the good news is, at the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwestern Pennsylvania, none of that food goes to waste. It’s all collected in a separate place, and picked up by an Amish farmer, who converts it into slop for his pigs.

On this day, we contributed opened boxes of Fruit Loops, Rice Krispies, and many other brands of breakfast cereal to the (future slop) bin, as well as some fresh bread that was in wrappers that had gotten ripped somewhere along the way.

A lot of things like the cereal comes from stores, still in the manufacturer’s original case lot cartons, which have been damaged in shipping somehow. Either crushed or torn or poked through with the equipment used to move the case lots around. So these damaged case lots are sent to the food bank, where volunteers like us open the case lot cartons, separate the damaged individual boxes of cereal from the ones that are not damaged, inspect the food, repackage what we can—(if only the outer packaging is damaged we can tape it back up—but if there are any holes in the bag that would expose any food, out it goes)—and recombine it into new case lots for the Food Bank to distribute. The extras are then sent to the Food Bank’s internal “grocery store” where individuals can go up and down the aisles and pick up small amounts of different donated foods.

As for the bread, it came from a local commercial bakery, and was still fresh. All we had to do was take it off the racks, inspect the bread for mold and the bags for holes, then repack the inspected bread—buns and loaves of every shape, size, and color—into cartons provided by the Food Bank. Taped shut, and labeled BREAD, they went onto nearby pallets and created fresh case lots for the Food Bank to shrink wrap and distribute.

Before we knew it, our time was up, and our work was done. As the English dramatist John Heywood said, “Many hands make light work.” But the Second Harvest Food Bank has many opportunities for group and family volunteering to help those in need. The Food Bank welcomes children age six and up, and even has child-friendly projects for them to work on. The Food Bank also sponsors specific Family Days, with shifts available between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. and Family Nights, with help needed from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. It’s a fun way to involve the whole family—be it your individual family or your community family. Get a group together and go. All you need to do is call and make your reservation.

Who are those in need? Well, here are some Fast Facts from the Second Harvest Food Bank, the largest non-profit food distribution organization in Northwestern Pennsylvania. Second Harvest solicits, inventories, and distributes donated products to 254 member agencies that directly serve people facing hard times. During fiscal year 2009-2010, Second Harvest distributed 7.7 million pounds of food to 72,600 people in NWPA.

They can’t serve this many people without help from people like you. Three ways you can help are to donate money (for every $1 donation, Second Harvest can obtain $17 worth of food), donate time (hours are available Monday through Saturday…check their website for more information), or you can donate food directly. Second Harvest accepts non-perishable food donations Monday through Saturday.

They then distribute these foods to the people who need it through various member agencies, like churches, food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, kids cafes, child care centers, backpack programs, and senior citizens food programs. The people who benefit from the Second Harvest Food Bank include the homeless, single parents, senior citizens, children, the working poor, the unemployed and underemployed, the disabled, and families in crisis situations.

That’s a lot of people needing food. Is there someone you can help feed today?