Seventeen year-old Caleb Kamalu was volunteering at F.U.N Food Bank in his hometown of University Place when he noticed food bank staff struggling to explain something to a customer. The woman had filled up her cart with more than the allotted amount of items, and a staff member was trying to explain that she needed to put some back. Caleb recognized it was a hard thing to tell someone, “It’s always a delicate balance because you know they need the food, but we have to make sure there is enough for everyone else as well.”
What made the interaction even more challenging was that the woman didn’t speak English. She spoke Russian. The staff member didn’t speak Russian. Caleb watched as the woman, “started trying to move her cart away and it was clear she was really upset. It was just one of those fight or flight situations and that’s just not what anyone wants.”
Caleb has seen communication issues like this happen all the time. He’s even been in the middle of them himself, “It really is a big barrier to being able to help people out or explain what’s available to them, and I just thought…this is something that can be fixed.”
To read the rest of the article and learn about Caleb's solution, click here.
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