Bay Area Food Bank Volunteer

Bay Area Food Bank Radiothon

Volunteering opportunities are available at all of the local Bay Area Food Banks during this time of need.

Volunteer Opportunities

• Alameda County Community Food Bank > > Click HERE
• Community Action of Napa Valley Food Bank > > Click HERE
• Food bank of Solano & Contra Costa County Food Bank > > Click HERE
• Redwood Empire food Bank > > Click HERE
• Servicing Sonoma, Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino, and Lake counties

Alameda County Community Food Bank Volunteer Event

PICKED WITH CARE

Sandia/California kicked off the charity initiative on July 8 at Alameda County Community Food Bank. A group of 16 hardworking volunteers helped package food items for distribution and sorted through bins of fresh apples and plums. In total, the volunteers helped prepare more than 12,000 pounds of food, the equivalent of about 10,230 meals, for distribution to individuals and families in need.

Before wrapping up the event, Sandia presented a $12,000 check from the Labs corporate contributions program. The donation will support continued food nourishment operations at Alameda County Community Food Bank.

FOOD SERVICEFOOD FOR ALL

Fertile Groundworks Community Garden

HELPING THEM GROW

On July 26, the Community Involvement team visited the Fertile GroundWorks garden in Livermore. The garden was blooming with a variety of ready-to-harvest crops, including fresh cucumbers that Sandia volunteers helped plant during a spring Sandia Serves volunteering event.

During the visit, Fertile GroundWorks President Teresa Win and Executive Director Brenda Kusler were presented with a $10,000 check from Sandia to continue supporting their mission to grow and distribute more than 20,000 pounds of fresh produce for local communities each year.

READY FOR PLANTINGFOOD FOR THOUGHT

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Want To Volunteer At A Food Bank

Food banks, food pantries, and meal programs in the Feeding America network are continuing to do what they do best – provide meals to our communities. Volunteers are critical to providing food to everyone during this difficult time.

Pledge to volunteer with your local food bank and find a volunteer opportunity near you.

San Francisco Food Bank

We rely on volunteers like you to help sort, package and distribute healthy food to people in need in San Francisco.

Each year, over 22,000 people contribute thousands of hours to fighting hunger in our community. This support will enable us to distribute 43.5 million pounds of food this year enough for 93,000 meals every day.

The information above can be found on the official website of San Francisco Food Bank. For more details about the organization and to find out how you can volunteer, please visit their website:

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Food Connections Resource Center

Our Food Connections Resource Center is the first stop for many in our community seeking food assistance. In addition to providing you with an emergency food box, we are here to help you navigate and receive information about vital Redwood Empire Food Bank hunger relief programs and food distributions throughout Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte Counties. Our team can also help you navigate the CalFresh application process, get WIC application assistance, and more.

3990 Brickway Blvd., Santa Rosa, CA 95403From Highway 101, take the Airport Blvd. exit.Desde la autopista 101, tome la salida Airport Blvd.

• Monday Friday

Tarpon Springs Sisters Help Feed Foster Families In The Tampa Bay Area

Teens help feed foster families

FOX 13 News

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. – Teen sisters from Tarpon Springs are helping feed foster families in the Tampa Bay area. They founded the non-profit Feeding the Fosters in 2019 and with the help of volunteers, they’ve prepared nearly 40,000 meals.

Laura Kopec, one of the founders, said the holidays can be an especially difficult time for foster children, which is where the charity she and her sister started, steps in to help.

“They don’t have certain traditions that we might have with family dinners and Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners so being able to provide these experiences for them is really important to me,” Kopec said.

The team was in Safety Harbor on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving where they provided families with all the makings of a Thanksgiving dinner.

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How To Volunteer During Covid

Every volunteer experience is a little different. Here are some opportunities you can do as a volunteer:

• Sorting and packing. You can get food ready for distribution. Volunteers inspect and sort food donations, which includes checking expiration dates and cans for rust or missing labels and boxing similar items together for our partner organizations. View our Guidelines video.
• Assisting at no-contact distributions. Help your neighbors feed their families.
• Volunteering from home. Help fundraise or spread awareness. Take our Volunteer Bingo Challenge to help out digitally. Read the rules here.

Open-toed shoes prohibited in all warehouses.

Sandia Partners With Other Doe Labs To Combat Food Insecurity

For students, summer offers a welcome respite from classes, tests and homework. However, food insecurity does not take school breaks, causing many food banks to experience summer as a season of low monetary donations and few volunteers.

To promote support for local food banks during their time of need, Sandia joined forces this year with the other DOE national laboratories in the San Francisco Bay Area: Berkeley Lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

With this partnership, known as the Bay Area Charitable Giving Initiative, each lab dedicated a month of activities to help combat food insecurity throughout the region.

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What It’s Like To Volunteer At A Food Bank

Every volunteer experience is a little different. Here are some things you might do as a volunteer:

• Sort and pack food: You can keep the shelves stocked by assembling food boxes for distribution.
• Assist at mobile pantries, drive-thru pantries, and no-contact distributions: Help your neighbors feed their families.
• Deliver meals: With many communities sheltering in place, you can help ensure our most vulnerable neighbors have the food they need while staying safe.
• Glean and garden: Volunteers collect food left in the fields after harvest or help tend the food bank or food pantry’s community garden.
• Volunteer from home: Some food banks have moved their volunteer shifts online and are asking volunteers to help fundraise or spread awareness.

Your safety is a top priority. The Feeding America network follows all Center for Disease Control and local guidelines for sanitation, hygiene, and social distancing to ensure staff and volunteers are safe. This may include masks, additional handwashing stations, gloves, reduced group sizes, and other safety precautions.

Provide Volunteer Engagement Opportunities In Hopes To Build Up The Communities They Live In

In 2021, Peninsula Food Runners provided more than 2,924,883 million pounds of free food to families in need. In any given week, we deliver over 52,000 meals to shelters, pantries, food banks, schools, homeless programs and low-income families. We are adding restaurants, caterers, supermarkets, food service providers and corporations every day who donate surplus food in the San Francisco Bay Area. We provide a free service to pickup and drop off for our donors and recipients with the help of over 600 volunteers and staff. Our recipients can expect food on a weekly basis.

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Bay Area Food Banks Experiencing Alarming Volunteer Shortages

Five major Bay Area food banks are calling on the public to help after all the nonprofits reported alarming volunteer shortages in their warehouses and at their food distribution sites.

The food banks, who serve 12 Northern California counties, said that while volunteer rates at sites traditionally slow down slightly between the months of January through March following the busy holiday season, this years drop has been more sudden and extreme as employers, schools, and community groups reinstate stay-at-home policies.

Volunteers are critical for Bay Area Food Banks who estimate they are still serving about a million people every month, said a press release.

Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, Alameda County Community Food Bank, San Francisco Marin Food Bank are also reporting an increase in requests for home delivery of free groceries as more community members are forced to isolate due to exposure or illness from the latest Omicron variant.

How to help

Individuals and groups are encouraged to volunteer to sort and box food at your local food banks warehouse or help handing out food at distribution sites located throughout our local food banks service area.

Alameda County Community Food Bank, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley and San Francisco Marin Food Bank are also in need of grocery delivery volunteers.

To volunteer, you must be in good health and follow safety protocols in place at each food bank.

Visit your local food banks website to sign-up and help.

How To Volunteer Or Donate To Your Local Food Bank

SAN FRANCISCO — Even before the Coronavirus pandemic hit, hundreds of thousands of Bay Area families were already stretched beyond their financial limits, often forced to choose between buying groceries, paying the rent, or buying medicine.

Across the Bay Area, the need for food assistance is unprecedented and growing. Collectively, Bay Area food banks estimate that they are now serving about a million people each month.

Throughout the country, food banks are facing an additional challenge on top of increased demand: surging food prices and supply chain issues. Due to inflation, some nutritious staples are now costing shoppers and food banks considerably more than they previously did.

“This year, many of us will celebrate the holiday and enjoy a special meal with our families and friends. We must ensure that all our neighbors can do the same,” said Barbara Abbot Vice President of Supply Chain for the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. “We have worked hard to overcome the barriers caused by the supply chain to meet the increased need for food assistance since the pandemic, but it puts tremendous strain on our financial resources, and our volunteer capacity is over-extended.”

In these challenging times, food banks help provide a lifeline to those facing hunger by offering a number of free food resources.

Please join us in the fight against hunger. Here are a few ways you can help.

You can make a cash donation to your area food bank:

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Its not often that a tech company and a nonprofit have goals that are so closely aligned.

Afresh Technologies, Inc., is a San Francisco-based software publisher whose use of artificial intelligence enables grocery retailers to meet customers demand for produce.

Similarly, the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is trying to satisfy the basic human need for nourishment, despite a dearth of volunteers to deliver the goods.

So it made sense that Afresh teamed up with the food bank and in November began offering its employees to work on the front lines handing out free staples to hungry families.

Its not peanut butter and baking mix, said Afreshs marketing coordinator Katherine Harris of the bounty, most of which is fresh produce. Its high-quality fresh vegetables and proteins. There are kiwis, oranges, celery and a lot of bananas its beautiful like really healthy, nourishing food.

The groceries also include basics such as rice, potatoes, chicken, tuna and eggs, ingredients that appeal to cultures as diverse as the languages needed to communicate with the families that flock to the giveaways Russian, Tagalog and Korean as well as Cantonese and Spanish, said Cody Jang, associate director of community engagement at San Francisco-Marin Food Bank.

And then theres the broken link in the supply chain.

Interested In Individual Or Group Volunteering Opportunities

Feeding Tampa Bay strives to create volunteer experiences that leave you feeling fulfilled. Individuals and groups are always welcome. Volunteering with us provides a great team-building opportunity for your group to serve together and make a difference in our community.

Groups over 10 volunteers must be scheduled by contacting our Volunteer Services Team. Email us below or call 813-254-1190.

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To Make A Donation Or Volunteer:

SF-Marin Food BankThe Marin and San Francisco Food Banks merged in 2011 to become the SF-Marin Food Bank, which distributes enough food for more than 100,000 meals every day. During this time of year, the organization collects nearly half of its annual operating budget through donations and gathers thousands of pounds of non-perishable food.

Donate:You can drop off food donations at any of the locations listed in San Francisco or Marin. You can also host your own food drive.

Volunteer:either in Marin or San Francisco.

St. Anthony FoundationSt. Anthony’s Dining Room serves 2,400 meals every day of the year. It also provides a number of programs, including medical assistance and a free clothing program.

Donate:Food can be dropped off during weekdays. There are also ongoing donations needed.

Volunteer:Volunteer positions are available in the dining room and free clothing clinic, with a heavy demand around the holidays. They’re also in need of highly skilled volunteers in the technology lab and medical clinic.

Glide Memorial ChurchGlide’s mission is to welcome everyone into their community and help those in need. That happens through a number of programs, one of the biggest of which is a daily meal program that serves up breakfast, lunch and dinner .

Donate:Donate on their website.

Volunteer:Serve meals or help prep the daily free meal program, though spots often fill up around the holiday season. More volunteers are also needed long-term.

Donate:

Stay Safe While Volunteering

The health and safety of our food bank volunteers, staff and visitors are our top priority. While volunteering we encourage you to take the following safety measures:

Main Branch

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Alameda County Food Bank

The Alameda County Community Food Bank has been in business since 1985 with a vision toward a day when we can go out of business. We are the hub of a vast collection and distribution network that provides food for 275 nonprofit agencies in Alameda County. In 2010, the Food Bank distributed 20.1 million pounds of food 52% of it fresh fruits and vegetables.

Since moving into our permanent facility near the Oakland Airport in 2005 and leading the national food bank movement for a ban on the distribution of carbonated beverages, the Food Bank has ramped up distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables by 845%.

Mission

To alleviate hunger by providing nutritious food and nutrition education to people in need, educating the public, and promoting public policies that address hunger and its root causes.

What We Do

Through a network of 275 strategically placed member agencies food pantries, soup kitchens, child-care centers, senior centers, after-school programs and other community-based organizations the Food Bank distributes enough food for 300,000 meals weekly.

• Our systematic approach to alleviating hunger includes:
• One of Californias busiest and most efficient emergency food helplines
• A multilingual food stamp outreach program which serves as the blueprint for programs across the nation
• Dynamic hunger and nutrition education programs
• An innovative advocacy program that promotes policies to benefit low-income residents

Become A Volunteer Captain

• Be an established volunteer with SHFB and have at least 100 volunteer hours
• Have helped out in all areas: sorting, production, etc.
• Attend a Food For Thought tour. Sign up at www.FeedHopeNow.org.
• Be available at least once a week and be at least 18 years old
• Be flexible and help out in the areas that are most needed
• Be able to provide directions to our volunteers
• Be able to utilize a manual pallet jack
• Have a desire to help make projects run smoothly and effectively all while the volunteers are enjoying themselves

Please note:

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How Do I Get My Community Service Hours Signed Off

Please bring any community service paperwork to the kitchen when you volunteer. We only sign off on hours the day they are completed. We do not sign off on hours at later dates due to the amount of volunteers that help us serve everyday.

A Note About Covid

Were grateful for all of the help were receiving at Goodwill and SJ Vietnamese Seventh Day Adventist Church. Were practicing COVID-19 protocols, all while feeding the need.People volunteering with essential services organizations can continue to volunteer with us. Youll need to go directly to the site from your home and return home upon completing your volunteer task. We will not allow volunteers to enter our facilities from a gathering or after making a stop along the way. We kindly ask that individuals over the age of 65 or those with an underlying chronic condition please refrain from signing up to volunteer with Loaves & Fishes until further notice. We hope that this is a short-term solution, and we are looking forward to having everyone back volunteering with us soon. Thank you for all you do!

Bay Area Food Banks Report Critical Volunteer Shortage

ALAMEDA COUNTY, Calif. The Alameda County Community Food Bank has enough capacity to accommodate 50 volunteers for any given shift.

On Friday, just 22 people showed up.

Theyre a dedicated crew thats coming in during the days to get the work done, but we need more hands, said food bank spokesperson Michael Altfest.

In fact, Altfest says 22 volunteers is actually a high number compared to what they have seen lately.

On most days in recent weeks, he says that number has mostly been in the teens.

And, thats pretty much because of the recent COVID surge, Altfest said.

In this case, Altfest is speaking for five Bay Area food banks all reporting a critical volunteer shortage that threatens to impact services at a time when food insecurity remains historically high.

Were seeing more people reaching out to us, for instance, for home deliveries, Altfest said. Were seeing some of our agencies have to shut down because of exposures. And, meanwhile, because of just how contagious this current surge is, weve seen a lot of particularly groups, cancel their volunteer shifts for the time being.

The food banks say they have strengthened their health and safety protocols and are confident volunteers can remain healthy lending a hand.

This is as close to one million Bay Area mouths are counting on them to keep the line moving.

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