It’s Volunteer Month! And I sure have a lot to say about our lovely volunteers, but first…what is a volunteer? Well, a volunteer is: A person who voluntarily undertakes or expresses a willingness to undertake a service and one of thousands of incredible human beings who power the mission of Second Harvest to help ensure no one goes hungry in the Inland Northwest.
Volunteering doesn’t have to be a one-time thing and the individuals who volunteer at Second Harvest in Spokane and Pasco have proven that in many ways. Even though April is nationally recognized as Volunteer Month, our gratitude for your service is year-round.
In the last couple of years, the Volunteer Center in Spokane has gone through various 
changes and adjustments to keep up with the increase in food demand, prompted first by COVID in 2020 and then by inflation. Even with the changes, our volunteer support has stayed and become even stronger. Our community is filled with mission-driven individuals to help us feed, nourish and build the community around us.
The volunteer centers are a huge part of the “nourish and build” aspect of our mission. We wouldn’t be able to do what we do every day without volunteer support filling our events Monday through Thursday every week. The individuals who dedicate their time to join us and participate in our volunteer opportunities help us process a variety of bulk produce and shelf-stable items by removing inedible food. This work can be quite messy, even sticky at times, but I promise, it’s all worth it! Volunteers then package the foods into family-sized portions. This provides the best quality of food for the community.
So far this year, volunteers have helped our Spokane and Pasco locations process nearly 1.06 million pounds of food. All that hard work will provide 881,683 families with meals to place on their tables at home. The volunteers’ shared support and time not only mean the world to us here at Second Harvest, but to our neighbors experiencing food insecurity. We are so appreciative of everyone who participates with us every day and of those who continue to come back!
To learn more about volunteering at Second Harvest in Pasco and Spokane, please visit: 2-harvest.org/volunteer.
