Photo taken by Da Zhou (2014)
The Richmond Food Bank CBEL Project has been a very challenging, yet rewarding experience for the entire group. There have been numerous challenges and struggles, but the process to understand and overcome these have rewarded us with satisfying experiences. As a group, we gained unique knowledge that would otherwise be unknown due to the nature of the CBEL project.
One of the biggest challenges that we faced during the interview and survey session was the sensitivity of asking personal questions to the clients. Many clients at food banks do not want their identity known, and approaching them with questions might be intimidating. As such, we needed to take extra precaution to ensure that the questions we asked were appropriate and did not incorporate any in-depth personal information. Furthermore, the stakeholders have different culture background and this introduced a language barrier. However, our group was fortunate enough to include members from different culture who were able to approach the clients and talk in their native tongue.
In order to work around these challenges, we visited the Richmond Food Bank (RFB) multiple times to assist and observe during distribution days. We all agree that this experience was one of our most rewarding experiences, both as a team and as individuals. By visiting the RFB multiple times, we were able to get a unique view of the distribution process and interactions between the clients, volunteers, and staff. This allowed us to better understand how we could approach each stakeholder during our interview and survey sessions.
As a team, we were able to to learn and practice some invaluable skills that would otherwise be difficult to practice. One of the main skills we developed were related to interaction with the clients. We learned how to approach a wide variety of clients and volunteers with different cultural, social, and economic background and understand their opinion. Related to this, we carried the team was able to learn how to effectively conduct interviews and learned to improvise appropriate questions based on the interviewee’s response. Lastly, an important skill that we, as a team, developed upon was working in a group environment. We worked well as a team, and exercised shared-leadership to ensure that every group member had a chance to be a leader.
Even though we thought that we were satisfied with the outcome of the project, there are a few things that could be done differently. It would be helpful if we approached non-profit organizations during our planning and execution phases to incorporate a more experienced point of view to the problem. Furthermore, one of our suggested solution is to contact the City of Richmond to organize a meeting between them and the Richmond Food Bank. We wish that we arrived at this suggestion earlier in our project’s timeline so that we could have contacted the City of Richmond ourselves. Due to the short timeline of the project, it would be more beneficial if we started working on the project from the first week of classes. We do understand that the timeline of the course is not changeable, and thus we suggest future groups to understand the CBEL project before the first day of classes to expedite the process as much as possible.