It was a simple complaint — one I’d heard many times before — but this time, it sent me over the edge.

“This mac and cheese is lumpy!”

Maybe it was the stress of the holiday season, or the guilt I often feel that time of year over how plentiful our lives are, while so many have so little. Or maybe it was really an indication that it’s time for a change.

In a classic I-am-turning-into-my-mother moment, I huffed, “Lumpy? Lumpy? There are starving kids in this world, and I’d bet any one of them would love to have your lumpy mac and cheese!”

Isn’t it ridiculous that we as parents keep resorting to that line? Yet — surprise, surprise — it didn’t work any better on my six-year-old than it did on me when I was young. But the exchange did get me thinking that maybe it’s time for our sheltered daughter to start seeing the more unpleasant realities of our world. Time to gain a little perspective.

As a first-grader, she has participated in food drives at school, and her Daisy scout troop has done a couple of service projects, but I wanted to embark on something more personal. And I wanted to experience it with her.

So this year, Belle and I are aiming to do a service project each month, and I’m going to share them here because frankly, it isn’t easy to find volunteer opportunities around town for young children.

I decided to start with Food Gatherers, the local food rescue program, as a way to build on what she’s learned from the food drives.

Food Gatherers offers several ways for children to volunteer. Children can help sort food donations in the warehouse for stocking the pantry, which local hunger-relief agencies then “shop” at. They can do this either individually (with an adult) or on one of the Family Days, which are usually scheduled during school breaks.

Kids can also make thank-you cards for food donors, and they can donate food they grow at home to Food Gatherers.

Missy Orge, director of outreach and training for Food Gatherers, said her organization is a good one for kids who are just getting started with volunteering.

“We're behind the scenes. People often want to work directly with those in need, but sometimes this is a good way to digest the issue and not have it be too overwhelming,” Orge said. “And for kids, hunger is something that they understand. They know that when you're hungry, it's not good.”

Since they had no upcoming Family Days scheduled, I set up an individual visit on a weekday morning. We started with a tour of the facility, which is located on the northeast side of town, off Dhu Varren Road.

When we began our tour, I took out my notebook and started jotting some things down. Shortly thereafter, Belle started rummaging around in her backpack and produced her own reporter’s notebook, which she had packed unbeknownst to me.

She was clearly awestruck by the enormous pallets of canned food, the boxes and boxes of apples, and especially the huge sacks of sugar. But the thing that made the deepest impression was seeing her school’s name on the big sign of food donors. It was like a light went on in her head: “Aha! So this is where all that food went!”

After the tour, we settled in to do some work. Our job was to sort through bags of canned goods, check expiration dates, then bring the good stuff over to the pantry and stock the shelves.

Belle enjoyed reading the labels and seeing what things were (Linzer cookies! Fruit Snacks!), and checking the expiration dates was quite a challenge for her. Find the date, read the date, determine whether it was less than six months past expiration — it was quite an academic lesson.

We filled our cart and headed over to the pantry for a new challenge: find where everything goes on the shelves. While we were stocking, a few people came in to shop for food. It took a couple of rounds of explanation before Belle seemed to understand that these people weren’t the ones who actually needed the food, but that they worked for other organizations who would prepare and serve the food to people who did —people who were hungry.

Orge said there are many teen and young adult volunteers at Food Gatherers who began volunteering there when they were little.

“As they get older, they can start to understand why people are hungry — that it’s not as simple as just going to the store to buy food,” Orge said. “Kids do gain a lot from helping here, and they know they are helping someone.”

Interested in volunteering at Food Gatherers? Check out their website for more info: http://www.foodgatherers.org. Food Gatherers is also a great place for field trips, as described here. And let me know if you have a suggestion for a good place to volunteer with kids!

Jen Eyer is on the Community Team at AnnArbor.com. She oversees the Parenting and Home & Garden sections, and writes feature stories, blog posts and opinion pieces. She can be reached at 734-623-2577 or jeneyer@annarbor.com.