Second Harvest
Positions:
Food bank sorting & packaging
Location:
East Central
Focus Area:
Food Security
Populations served:
Time Commitment:
Flexible
All
Second Harvest is the leading hunger relief organization in Eastern Washington and North Idaho, feeding 55,000 people every single week. Many who line up at one of Second Harvest’s 250 partner food banks and meal sites just can’t quite make ends meet and reach out for food assistance. They include seniors (an estimated 15% of food bank users), hardworking families with children, and veterans.
Generous food and fund donors allow Second Harvest to provide nutritious food at no cost to people in need. Nearly half of all food is fresh produce, and up to 70 percent is fresh and perishable, including foods like dairy and lean meats. It takes thousands of volunteers to sort, repack, and distribute millions of pounds of food each month. With their help Second Harvest is working hard to provide healthy food to every person, every day.
Volunteering at Second Harvest
IN-PERSON. Second Harvest volunteers are trained to support our efforts in our Volunteer Center Sort Room. Our sort room sees many different categories of product, some of which include produce, bulk frozen and dry goods, bread, Bite-2-Go kits, and Senior Boxes (CSFP).
Volunteers will help repack and/or sort the food and non-food items into family or agency size portions, which are then distributed through our 250+ food bank network. Volunteers will also build specialty orders for our senior and youth programs, as needed.
The items to be sorted are distressed, which makes quality control essential. After watching the 15-minute safety and instructional video, being trained on the project they will be working on, volunteers will be able to determine good quality vs. bad quality of a product.
Volunteers will also learn how to appropriately record, label and tape each box of product for our food bank agency network. Volunteers may also learn how to use the hand pallet jack to move full pallets of food and product through the sort room and warehouse staging areas. Volunteers will learn to build various cardboard boxes that are used for storing and shipping the product that is being sorted during sort room shifts.
PHYSICAL ABILITIES
Regularly—stand, reach, grasp
Frequently—lifting up to 20lbs, bending over
Occasionally—stoop/crouch, pull/push, lifting 40+lbs
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential tasks of a volunteer in the Volunteer Center Sort Room.
DAYS AND TIMES OF SORTS ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Monday: 1pm-4pm & 5:30pm-7:30pm
Tuesday: 5:30pm-7:30pm
Wednesday: 1pm-4pm & 5:30pm-7:30pm
Thursday: 5:30pm-7:30pm
Friday: 9am-12pm & 1pm-4pm
Saturday: 9am-12pm & 1pm-4pm
Volunteers must wear closed toe shoes. We also ask that all volunteers sign up on our website before coming in to sort, so that staff is able to prepare accordingly.
