Are you looking for an activity to fill the dreary months of winter?
Did you make a New Year’s resolution to be more charitable?
Or maybe you’re a retiree with extra time on your hands, a parent who wants to teach your children the gift of giving or a student in need of community service hours.
As the good-will glow of the holiday fades, now is the perfect time to become a volunteer.
But where? What would be expected of you? What’s out there that you would truly enjoy?
Let’s end the mystery.
Over the next few months, we’re going to take you behind the scenes to see exactly what is involved with being a volunteer at several area institutions.
Today: the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank.
Last year, it took 9,060 souls to do the work of the food bank. Only 60 of them got paid.
The agency relies heavily on the hands and hearts of volunteers at its Akron warehouse.
Every single day, up to 150 retail partners and assorted food drive efforts drop off boxes of food that have to be inspected, cleaned, sorted and repacked before they are sent off to any of the 500 hunger relief sites in eight counties.
In the course of the year, those 9,000 volunteers will handle 30 million pounds of food, one piece at a time. During any typical business hour, a peek into the warehouse will find a dozen or more volunteers assembled around steel tables doing this work.
You can sign up to be a volunteer and schedule your first 90-minute shift in less than five minutes.
Signing up
I started my experience by visiting http://www.akroncantonfoodbank.org, where I followed the “Get Involved” link to “Volunteer,” then scrolled down to the application forms.
Youths 10 to 16 can volunteer too, as long as they are with an adult. Families need to fill out a different form for each family member.
A special application is available for groups. The group organizer fills out that brief form, which triggers a phone call from the food bank within 48 hours to plan the activity.
I chose an adult individual application, which set up a password-protected online account. I typed in answers to a dozen questions (name, address, phone, emergency contact) and read some safety guidelines about handling food and working in a warehouse environment.
Choose your activity
This is the point where you can note special skills. Maybe you have a commercial driver’s license and can help pick up prepared food donated daily by restaurants and get them to hot food kitchens. Or perhaps you’ve worked in an office and can do data entry.
Volunteers can also sign up to help at special events, like corralling runners at the Selfless Elf 5K run, working at the Taste of the Pro Football Hall of Fame or sharing your ideas on special events committees.
I knew that I wanted to work in the warehouse, so as soon as I completed my application form, I was able to schedule my first shift.
My account showed a calendar filled with “Help Wanted” signs on days that were not yet filled — mostly weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. This year, there will also be Saturday mornings and some scattered evenings available.
I clicked on a Monday, was offered several time slots and settled for a 90-minute afternoon shift.
Because I asked for email reminders on my application form, I got an email confirming my schedule and another two days in advance of my shift. You can also ask to be notified by text messages if you prefer.
If you want to volunteer at the food bank but don’t have easy access to the internet, you can also give them a call at 330-535-6900.
Showing up
I parked in the lot at 350 Opportunity Parkway and went inside the main door. A receptionist showed me to a bank of electronic tablets attached to the wall. I signed in using my phone number and acknowledged I was beginning my shift.
I was offered a locker if I needed it, then took a seat in the adjoining cafeteria with eight other volunteers who had signed up for 2 p.m.
At 2:04 p.m., a smiling Angie Kemper, the volunteer center supervisor, came through the door that separates the warehouse from the cafeteria wearing a Santa hat and greeting us with the promise of a fun and satisfying experience.
She told us that we would be sorting snacks destined for backpack programs. There are several nonprofit efforts in the region that give low-income school children backpacks on Fridays filled with enough food to carry them through the weekend.
We followed Kemper into the warehouse, where there were already over a dozen volunteers buzzing around the sorting tables.
I wore jeans, a T-shirt and the required closed-toe shoes. Volunteers are told to dress in layers since it’s a warehouse environment, but it was comfortable and most folks seemed content in short sleeves.
On the job
After pausing at a rack to grab a pair of gloves, I was led to the fruit cup table, where a fork lift had dropped off a huge cardboard bin filled with single-serving packages of applesauce, peaches, pears, pineapple and oranges.
Many of the packages had torn open, releasing the individual plastic cups. So we checked the expiration dates stamped on each item, tried to match loose cups with their original packages, wiped down each item with a sanitized rag, taped the reunited packages back together and placed them in another bin for another team to sort for distribution.
Fruit that didn’t meet expiration date guidelines, cups that couldn’t be matched to a package where the ingredients were visible and containers that had leaked and turned into science experiments got tossed into the dumpster behind us.
The volunteers around me chatted amicably while they worked, and I soon learned our group included a retired engineer, a grandma, a dad and three students working toward community service requirements. The folks at the table next to us wore identical T-shirts, coming from a company that organized a day of volunteering for their employees.
Ninety minutes came and went quickly, after which I bid my new friends farewell, tossed away my dirty gloves and signed out at the same tablet near the front door.
Who should volunteer
On an average day, the food bank will host 150 volunteers.
If you can stand for 90 minutes, you got this. Some volunteers bend a lot as they dig deep into the large cardboard tubs, but you don’t have to take on that role if you have back issues.
There is no training. It’s learn-as-you-go with veteran volunteers filling you in along the way. It’s easy enough that the food bank accepts helpers as young as 10 years old.
Because you schedule yourself online, it’s also a perfect fit for someone who doesn’t want to commit to something regular.
In other words, you won’t be letting anyone down if you travel a lot, disappear for the winter or have only an occasional day to spare.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.