The Fifth Person was up dark and early one special morning on 20 June as we volunteered our time to Willing Hearts – a non-profit organization that  provides daily meals and other support services to the underprivileged, the needy, and other marginalized members of society.

We reached Willing Hearts central kitchen at 5:00 am in the morning (still dark!) to start cooking meals that will be given to the needy later during the day. The target number of meals that day: 4,871. Wow! We got going immediately.

There were many ingredients that needed to be prepared before cooking began: vegetables, meat, eggs, rice, etc. We were assigned to different stations and started with our tasks.

Once the ingredients were ready, the cook began. We didn’t handle the huge woks in the kitchen (the staff and more experienced volunteers did those) but ...