Local food banks face volunteer shortage ahead of the holidays
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With the holiday season coming up, local food banks are searching for volunteers to help meet the growing demand.
At Loaves and Fishes — a volunteer-based nonprofit that provides meals to Minnesotans in need — officials said they’re facing a staffing shortage, which has a domino effect on the people the group serves.
“It kind of combines two things that I really love. I love cooking and I love serving people,” Kathy Lawless, Loaves and Fishes volunteer, said. “You really get to know the community that you’re working in and you become very invested in that community."
Within the last couple of years, the way she serves the community changed.
“The guests got the opportunity to come down, come in, sit down and have a meal inside. Now we are packaging meals and sending them out the door,” she explained.
Kathy Lawless and fellow volunteers.[Courtesy photo.]
Lawless said the nonprofit has enough food to serve, but not enough people to prepare and hand it out.
“There are times where I have three hours to cook food for 200 people by myself,” she said.
Officials said the lack of staff puts more pressure on volunteers and extends wait times for a meal.
“Especially in the winter when people are waiting outdoors for their meals, we want them to be able to come up get a meal and get back to someplace safe and warm as quickly as possible,” Lawless said.
Normally, Loaves and Fishes gets roughly 25 applicants when they post a job, but that number recently dropped to three.
“It is a huge impact. It makes our staff’s job much more difficult,” Cathy Maes, Loaves and Fishes executive director, said.
Loaves and Fishes is on track to serve another 4 million meals in 2021, which is more than double the amount compared to 2019. Current volunteers are hoping more people step up to the plate to help this holiday season to keep up with the growing demand.
“I hope that we get more volunteers and that we eventually get to the point where we can reopen sites so people can be welcomed back into a building to sit down and eat again,” Lawless said.