I Counted Cans at a Food Bank. It Wasn't Enough.

I am hoping you know what I mean

Last holiday season, I did what many newly retired people do when they want to feel useful. I signed up to volunteer. For me it was at a food bank.

I showed up and sorted donations and counted cans of vegetables for three hours.

I drove home feeling terrible.

Not because the work wasn’t meaningful. It absolutely was. The people running that food bank are heroes, and the families they serve needed every single one of those cans.

I felt terrible because, somewhere on the drive home, I had to admit something that felt almost shameful to say out loud: I have more to contribute than this.

When I got home and felt lost and opened Instagram to fill the void.

What kept coming up in my feed was a wall of side hustles. Start a business. Monetize your expertise. Build passive income. Become a virtual assistant, a brand consultant, a course creator. Each one more confident than the last that this was the obvious answer to whatever I was feeling (and a ticket to freedom from the 9-5).

Some of them were probably real. Most were selling a masterclass.

I closed the app.

I called my sister to see if she needed help with anything, she did not. Then I called my mom and she happily accepted the offer for help.

My mom doesn’t drive anymore. She had a short list for the grocery store—three things, nothing complicated. A simple errand that should takes twenty minutes.

I made the time.

What I didn’t expect was what the errand actually looked like.

We weren’t in a hurry, so instead of rushing through the list and heading for the exit, I walked with her. Slowly. Past the dairy case: are you sure you don’t need milk? What about cheese and crackers? She’d pause, look at her list, think, and add things. Three items became a much fuller cart.

Shopping is getting harder for her. There were items on the list she was sure she didn’t need. There was backtracking when something else came up. Then there were the harder moments, when she couldn’t remember what we’d already put in the cart or lost track of where we were headed next. I’d point to whatever was already there. Nope, you already got it—you’re very efficient. She laughed at me.

When she forgot the next thing on the list entirely, I’d just redirect: okay, we’re going to grab bread now. What kind do you want? Because I already knew which brand she buys, I could guide us there before she became overloaded by the choices.

She didn’t just need a ride to the store.

She needed someone who already knew which bread she liked.

By the time I brought her home and helped put everything away, she was so happy. She said she felt like she’d really accomplished something that day.

I thought about the masterclasses on the drive home. About what they were selling and what I had just spent my afternoon doing. About the difference between monetizing your expertise and just using it. Quietly. In a grocery store on a Tuesday, for someone who needed exactly what you happen to have.

The food bank needed bodies, and I was a body. There is nothing wrong with that. The world needs people who show up for that work joyfully. I am not one of them, and that is useful to know about myself.

What I am is someone who knows which bread. Who can hold the thread when she loses it. Who has enough unhurried afternoons now to actually show up for the people who need that specific thing.

The restlessness I felt driving home from that food bank wasn’t emptiness. It was capacity with nowhere to go yet.

The worthy container was already in my phone.

Where is your capacity going right now — and is it going to the right place?

If this landed somewhere true for you — share it with a woman who needs to read it. And come back next Monday. We’re just getting started. 🌿

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