When our Marion-Polk Food Share President, Ron Hays, gives tours of our facility, he often asks, “Who owns the Food Share?” After a few shrugs and guesses, he points his finger towards his tour group and answers, “You do.”
He might also ask, “Who runs the Food Share?” and the answer would be pretty close to the same: “Volunteers.”
Over 45,000 hours of volunteer time was generously given here at Marion-Polk Food Share last year. Throughout our network of member charities, that number rises to almost 150,000 hours. We rely on the time, talents, and resources of our volunteers to keep our warehouse running and our administrative offices humming. In addition, we often call upon community volunteers for special events such as Chef’s Nite Out, Homeless Connect, and the Letter Carriers’ Food Drive. How would you like to make a difference?
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- We distribute over 135,000 pounds of food each week in our warehouse. Volunteers help sort food donations, repack bulk foods into family-sized portions, prepare orders from member charities for distribution, and shuttle collection barrels throughout the community and back to the Food Share during food drives.
- During the growing season, volunteers prepare, plant, and harvest our network of COMMUNITY GARDENS. Volunteer harvester teams are organized to pick fruit trees and glean produce in area gardens, fields, and orchards to provide fresh produce for the Food Share.
- Volunteers staff school and community sites for our NO HUNGRY CHILD Spring Break, Lunch Program, offering educational enrichment activities and nutritious free lunches to children ages 1-18 throughout our two county footprint. When the school lunchroom is closed, NO HUNGRY CHILD fills the gap.
- Take the pantry to people who need it! Our pantries-on-wheels take food stuffs to senior housing sites once a month so that our older neighbors who are unable to drive or use public transportation can be offered a variety of nutritious foods to “shop” for.
- Offer your service at one of our 86 member charities, which include on-site meal programs as well as neighborhood food pantries.
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- Learn how to help friends in need apply for food stamps or become one of our trainers in nutrition and meal planning, food preservation, or family budget.
- Help us tell the story. Train for our Speakers Bureau. Join our Writers’ Guild. Produce programming for our video podcast. Speak up and speak out about hunger in our communities. We can’t enlist our neighbors in our fight to end hunger if they are unaware that there’s a problem. Educate! Empower!
- Join with our partners at Reading for All to provide books and opportunities for educational enrichment in our pantries and as part of our NO HUNGRY CHILD Spring Break Lunch Program.