Volunteer Spotlight: Marion Polk Food Share
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Marion Polk Food Share is an organization that is close to the heart of many of our team members. None more so than our owner, Alex Beamer. Alex has been on the Board of Directors for the Marion Polk Food Share since 2008.
This year, Alex wanted to spread the joy by inviting some of his team to participate in packing the charitable donations to help feed the hungry in our community.
Who Is The Marion Polk Food Share?
Marion Polk Food Share is an independent nonprofit that helps lead the fight to end hunger in Marion and Polk counties. The Food Share collects and distributes thousands of pounds food to a network of more than 100 partners to help end hunger.
The food share also operates Meals on Wheels in Salem and Keizer, which delivers meals to seniors and disabled adults unable to travel due distribution centers due to illnesses or difficulty.
The true goal of the organization is to not exist, in a perfect world no one would go hungry, that’s why the Food Share also supports programs that address the root causes of hunger. These programs include:
- Community gardens, which grow healthy food and healthy communities.
- Job skills training programs that empower people to find and keep jobs.
- business, agriculture, and leadership training to young people while growing produce for emergency food distribution.
How Volunteering for the Marion Polk Food Share Works?
We started our work by putting on the proper protective clothing and gloves to handle the food. We also cleaned our area with disinfectant to reduce airborne illnesses and keep our community healthy.
We then prepared all of the boxes we were going to use to distribute the food.
We started by identifying and packaging an assortment of frozen meats. Once we completed this, we moved on to bagging apples and providing information on the 2-1-1 program, which is a program to help connect people to services to help them during difficult times.
Results
In total we spend 3 hours and processed and re-packed over 8,719 pounds of food!
We packed 7,519 pounds of meat and 1,200 apples, helping a total of 7,266 families. It was a very fulfilling and joyful time. We can’t wait to do it again. Marion Polk Food Share made it safe, fun and easy to volunteer and help our community.
We also had a great time doing it and the joy of helping our community is still buzzing around LifeSource.
If you’d like to get involved, please visit www.marionpolkfoodshare.org.
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