Yeti volunteers at the SF-Marin Food Bank

When it comes to volunteering, it can be a task finding and coordinating an event where a group can get together during the business-week. If you or your company are trying to find somewhere to volunteer, SF-Marin’s website makes it incredibly easy to schedule time for a group to volunteer during the week.

We chose the 6-8 pm shift and as soon as the day was over we left the office and headed to the SF-Marin Food Bank. Not only was the Food Bank an easy 10 minute drive from the office, but it's central SF location was close enough that half our group decided to ride their bikes.

At the food bank we were introduced to other volunteers as the staff explained what we would be doing during the shift. Next we were led to a corner of the warehouse where we would pack 1 lb. bags of rice for the next two hours. We listened to classic rock from the 60’s and 70’s, measured and packed rice, and enjoyed conversation with other volunteers.

Before we knew it our 2 hours had gone by we had packed well over 3,500 pounds of rice to be distributed to hungry folks in the San Francisco and Marin County area. Before we left the director took a moment to thank everyone and shared with us the startling statistic that in the bay area hunger is a daily threat for 1 in 4 people in our community (much worse than the national average of 1 of 6). To combat that number the SF-Marin Food Bank has scaled up distribution to reach more than 225,000 people this year. We all left feeling glad to have helped out such a good cause and excited to come back and help out again!

For more info on opportunities at the SF-Marin Food Bank, click this link: http://vol-sffb.org/

PS: If you accumulated some parking tickets in San Francisco you can volunteer your time at the Food-Bank to pay them off!