This past week we celebrated our volunteers at Second Harvest’s Annual Volunteer Dinner. And it got us thinking about everything volunteers do to feed community with us.
We get a lot done at Second Harvest. You all know this because you see it: our facilities are busy. Forklifts zip around, pallets of food get lifted onto trucks, vegetables go in and out of the coolers.
This past year alone we distributed nearly 36 million pounds of food.
And we couldn’t do it without our volunteers.
It goes without saying that volunteers are the lifeblood of any good nonprofit, and this is certainly true at Second Harvest. Collectively, our community of volunteers dedicated more 40,000 hours to our mission through our most recent fiscal year. As we strive to be careful stewards of our donor’s dollars, this is, if you will forgive the pun, no small change.
But beyond this most practical side of volunteering, there is care of community that your gifts of time bring to the people and communities we serve.
The fact that every bit of food that makes it to a family’s dinner table in Watagua County or Davidson County, Alamance County or maybe just up the road here, has passed through the hands of someone who cared enough to help make it happen…it is like an extra ingredient that is added to every meal.
That extra ingredient assures our neighbors that we care about them; that we think they deserve good food; that we do not think it is their fault that they need help; that they are a part of our community. Our work together is about more than providing food for the table; it’s about being present for one another in times of need and loss, because this is what carries each of us through our days and makes our communities strong. It’s what we mean when we say we are feeding community.
For 35 years, Second Harvest has carried food and hope to the communities we serve… you as volunteers have been a large part of that. Volunteers are the change makers, dedicating their time to make our communities places where no one goes hungry and everyone thrives.
Congratulations to Steve and Steven Jones, Anne and Jonathan Smith, Nick Loflin, Linda Malone, Judge Chester Davis and Susie Davis, Walter Beam and Jim Lancaster on being recipients of the 2017 Volunteer Awards–and thank you to everyone who gives their time and heart so tirelessly to our cause.
Interested in volunteering for Second Harvest? Learn more here.
