Community Service—Packing Mooncakes for Charity

In an effort to fulfill required CS hours, 14 HAS students contributed their time to a charity organization on August 31st, in Taichung. The students packed thousands of boxes of freshly baked mooncakes.

Ethan Murphy, the school’s community service coordinator, contacted Eden Social Welfare (伊甸 organization) for available services and scheduled an event in a 7-story factory in Taichung. With not many other volunteers at the mooncake factory, our school was allocated 1400 mooncakes to package and load into more transportable packages.

Our student volunteers, and Mr. and Mrs. Stancati, the chaperones, took on piles of mooncakes, packing each of them individually into containers of eight. According to Mr. Stancati and several other volunteers, the orderly fashion of loading mooncakes looked like “an assembly line”, a process of manufacturing products invented by Henry Ford.

After hours of tireless packing, the volunteers had a brief break and lunch which was provided. However, due to the passion of the workers, several volunteers continued working before the break was completely over. This efficiency allowed four volunteers a tour of the inner-workings of the factory.

On the 3rd floor, the germ-free story, the majority of the mooncakes were baked and sent into a vacuum-sealing machine that sealed the mooncakes in plastic packaging along with preservatives. On the opposite end of the room was an unpacking station, where all badly sealed mooncakes were unpackaged and repackaged to ensure the quality of the mooncakes. Employees who unpacked the mooncakes were equipped with gloves, masks, and shower caps to maintain the cleanliness of the bakery environment.

In total, the amazing student volunteers, who represented HAS, boxed a total of 1400 finished products and completed their task earlier than expected. Eden Social Welfare (伊甸 organization) provided volunteers a decent workspace and outstanding lunch. Thanks to them, each individual volunteer earned 7 community service hours for their hard work and effort.