In a Nutshell: Celebrating our volunteers at North Valley Food Bank

April is National Volunteer Month and at North Valley Food Bank (NVFB) we celebrate and thank the helping hands who give their time to build food security in our community. NVFB was built on the legacy, passion, and hard work of community volunteers surrounding June Munskin-Feenan. For most of its history, our food bank was solely run by volunteers.

With continuous growth, however, NVFB reached its threshold several years ago and it became necessary to move from a fully volunteer-run organization to having full-time paid staff to lead operations, fundraise and conduct administration. Our annual budget grew from $10,000 to $1 million over the past 30 years and the number of monthly food bank visits increased from 500 to 2,000 in the last five years alone. Further, we added a variety of community kitchen programming and our services have expanded geographically with our mobile pantries and rural pantry delivery program in Lincoln and Glacier counties.

Volunteers are still and will always be the foundation of the food bank’s day-to-day operations and critical to our success. We currently have 75 volunteer shifts each week, more than ever. Every week, at least 50 different volunteers rescue thousands of pounds of food from our grocery stores, sort produce, stock our grocery store, help customers shop, provide community resources and education, prepare boxes for our drive-thru and delivery customers, stack pallets of food for our mobile pantries and rural pantry deliveries, make kids snack bags, prepare delicious recipes and meals in our community kitchen, ensure our databases are up-to-date, keep the warehouse and walk-in cooler and freezer clean, and accomplish many other tasks that ensure our neighbors receive the food and support they need. Some of our volunteers have been with us since the beginning and each year spend more than 200 hours volunteering at the food bank – BRAVO! We are incredibly grateful!

So, to everyone else, do you love all things food and want to make our community a better place? Then join us! We have customer-facing opportunities and always need support behind the scenes. Moreover, in addition to weekly shifts, we have unique seasonal opportunities. NVFB is the only food bank in the country where you can process elk, deer and (occasionally) antelope during hunting season. Alternatively, you can volunteer in the field of one of our local farms and harvest delicious produce for our neighbors. For the most gregarious of you, we always need a bartender at our annual Forever June celebration.

While we often find volunteer support over the holidays, it always helps to train new volunteers during quieter seasons. So, why not try out a shift when you aren’t stretched thin over the holidays? Our communities need food assistance year-round and now is a great time to volunteer. The ski season is over, and summer hasn’t quite started yet. Spend the shoulder season out of the mud and giving back. Now is a great time to explore something new! To sign up for a volunteer shift, visit northvalleyfoodbank.org/get-involved-volunteer.

Sophie Albert is the executive director of North Valley Food Bank. Albert provides insights into happenings at the food bank, rural food insecurity, stories of the community and more in the monthly Whitefish Pilot column titled, In a Nutshell.