Photo: Eze Amos
What
Driving food to the distribution center for the Emergency Food Network.
Why
Everyone should have access to nourishing food.
How it went
Like with most volunteer opportunities, I got more out of it than I gave.
The Emergency Food Network is an organization that I have volunteered with in the past and recently rejoined. The nonprofit’s mission is to provide people in our community who are experiencing food insecurity with a nutritious three-day supply of food. I’m Italian: Feeding people is my cultural mandate, so volunteering with EFN felt like a no-brainer.
The organization has a variety of ways volunteers can contribute their time. For extroverts, becoming an office or distribution volunteer might be the best fit. Office volunteers take food orders from community members. Distribution team members finish readying orders and—you guessed it—distribute them to clients. Introverts might prefer volunteer roles shelving groceries at the pantry, packing bags for distribution, or driving orders from the pantry to the distribution center. EFN asks volunteers for an ongoing commitment, with the different roles requiring as few as one hour to as many as six hours a month.
For my monthly driving shift, I arrived at the pantry at noon. The office volunteers faxed (yes, faxed) the day’s order list to the pantry. After calling the office to confirm receipt, I began pulling aside and labeling the needed bags. EFN is a well-oiled feeding machine, with its many volunteer hands making lighter work. As a driver, I grabbed pre-packed bags (thank you, baggers!) from tables where they’re organized by the number of people they feed. The different size bags can feed two, four, six, or eight people for three days, and smaller bags can be combined to provide for larger households. Vegetarian bags are also available.
Working from the faxed order sheet, I labeled the bags with the recipients’ last names—maybe my favorite part of the process because I like thinking about the recipients and adding my mental well wishes to their orders. I also get to use a Sharpie, which has been a source of joy ever since childhood. Jokes aside, I went through a hard spell 10 years ago (aka the ramen years), and I learned firsthand that hunger is sometimes just a few bad breaks away.
After labeling the bags, I loaded them on large carts to move them to my SUV to take to distribution. Maneuvering the carts can also be fun—if you mind your feet. (You only need to catch a heavy cart to the Achilles tendon once to learn that lesson.)
I double-checked that the labeled bags matched the order form. Then came the weight-bearing exercise portion of the show—take that, osteoporosis! Some drivers have solo shifts but most often we work in pairs. My last shift was solo, but I won the SUV-Tetris and managed to get all the bags in my ride. An incidental benefit of being an EFN driver is that I have a monthly reason to ensure I’ve cleaned out my vehicle.
I made the short drive to the EFN distribution center on Harris Street, where the cardio continued with lugging the bags into the building. The intrepid distribution volunteer helped, as always. We confirmed all orders present, and my volunteer commitment for the day ended by 1pm. With just over an hour out of my day, I had a small hand in helping more than 20 households eat well for the next three days.
The Emergency Food Network relies on community support to provide three days of balanced meals, on the same day requested, to individuals and families in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
