Come in many sizes and shapes. Over the course of our lifetime we accumulate an assorted collection of experiences…some very good, some not so good, some you want to completely forget and others that are very useful and come in very handy. Experience is a great teacher, but passes out tough love when we don’t learn from our experience. Have you ever noticed that some people have many more experiences than others, and have you wondered if it is better to have more or less. I’d like to think that many of my experiences give me appreciation for the life I now live, and the family I have. Dipping back in my memory bank, I pulled up an experience that came in very handy last Saturday, and that was my summer job working on an Avon Products production line in Suffern New York. Avon hired college students to work in their offices doing filing and typing. I was not in college, but working to save money and hoping to go. I was hired as a file clerk, but after a week I found out that instead of making $36.00 a week, if I worked on the production line I could make $56.00. When I inquired, they tried very hard to discourage me. They said the work was very hard. I can do it. They didn’t think my 98 lb. weight could lift the heavy cartons, I can lift the cartons. I continued to insist, especially after I figured out how much the $20 a week raise meant over a 10 week period. I finally got my wish and the mandatory green dress smock with a yellow collar.  I was shown where to punch my time card, and which door to enter in, and advised to bring my lunch. I was saving every penny, so did not buy a lunch pail, but used paper bags. My first day was a total shock. College hazing could not hold a candle to how I was treated…hey kid, you lost? this isn’t college. you came in the wrong door…what you didn’t have money for the cafeteria, you had to come down here and eat with us. Luckily floor supervisors would appear and they would all be quiet. I kept thinking of that $20 and no amount of teasing was going to take that from me. It was comforting to find out  it was a right of passage for any new worker, and I eventually settled into my new found job. It was never easy, and I still respect how very very hard they worked, but it was all worth it when I got my weekly pay envelope with $20 extra dollars in it.  Many of you are probably wondering how I  used this experience.  It came in handy last Saturday on a production line in Oxford, Florida.   Several weeks ago members of the Amazing Grace Lutheran Church were looking for volunteers to help with a charitable program they were sponsoring, which was to supply 20,000 lunches to Hungry Children.  Some of the lunches were to go locally in Wildwood, the Orlando area and also to  impoverished countries such as Honduras.  They would need 100 people to assemble the 20,000 lunches, and they said it would take about 2 1/2 hours.  When we arrived at the gymnasium where this was happening, my experience brought back memories…. there were the production lines. There were approximately 10 work areas that required 5 people each. Each had a job, 1. bag under the funnel, 2. vitamin pack in funnel, 3. cup of soy flour 4. spoonful of dried vegetables 5. cup of rice…next, we’d fill our container and call Runner, they’d take it and it would go to a group that were weighing, a group that was  sealing and a group packing the cartons. In less than 2 1/2 hours,  20,000 lunches were assembled packed in cartons and ready to go.  I really think the Avon Floor Supervisors would have been very impressed with this production line…and my experience taught me  to keep swaying side to side if standing for any length of  time. I no longer weigh 98 lbs., can not lift cartons and did not make an extra $20, but these  rewards were greater, knowing that  some little tummy will be full.