Arizona nonprofits need more volunteers
During the holidays, St. Mary’s Food Bank saw massive volunteers seeking to help those facing food security. The food bank had more volunteers than its facilities could hold.
“There are times like during our Thanksgiving distributions and our holiday distributions where we actually have more hands than we can use,” said Jerry Brown, a spokesperson for St. Mary’s.
However, since the New Year has rolled around, the number of volunteers in St. Mary’s and nonprofits as a whole has dropped dramatically. Brown said the food bank has seen a drop from about 200 volunteers per day during the holidays to just about 20-30 people per day in the past few weeks.
The Society of St. Vincent De Paul has seen a similar drop. Pam Coonan, the group’s director of volunteer operations, said there has been a 20% decrease in volunteer hours from December to January.
It’s not uncommon to see a drop in volunteers at the start of a new year. People get busier and don’t have the holiday spirit to motivate them to give back. However, the trend has been worse in the past few years.
“We try to build ourselves a little bit of a cushion during November and December when we had all those extra volunteers,” Brown said. “But we’re more than halfway through the month of January, and we’ve already dug into half of our stockpile that we were able to build during the holiday season just because the number of people continue to cut a pace.”
Brown said there could be multiple reasons for this, including the rise in the number of people working from home, which makes it difficult to get big groups out to volunteer.
“It’s kind of an offshoot of people working from home,” Brown said. “You don’t have that group of 50-100 from a company necessarily that come in at the same level that they did in the past because half of their employees are working from home and don’t necessarily come out from their homes for the opportunity to help out as a group.”
St. Mary’s Food Bank seeing more families than ever seeking help
The effects of the lack of volunteers are being exacerbated because more people need help. Brown said St. Mary’s saw about 600 families per day at its Phoenix and Surprise locations prior to 2019. That number jumped up to 1,100 during the pandemic. While numbers returned to typical amounts in 2021, they have now been steadily increasing since 2022. Brown said that the food bank has seen about 1500-1600 families per day in the past few months, which are record highs.
Brown said he thinks the rising inflation juxtaposed with fixed incomes has made it hard for people to keep up with the economy. Older adults, in particular, have been reaching out for help more than ever.
“At our location in Surprise, it has really exploded because of the number of seniors that need help,” Brown said. “They’re on fixed incomes, inflations hit 10-15%, and they don’t have any money to replace that with . ... So at our Surprise locations where we would have seen 160, 170 families, we have over 500 families a day that are coming to that food bank.”
“This is a great time of the year to help. If you came here during the holidays and enjoyed your experience, come on back out.”
Jerry Brown
Spokesperson for St. Mary’s Food Bank
Volunteer opportunities available right now in metro Phoenix
St. Mary’s has both the morning and afternoon shifts available Tuesday through Saturday. Volunteers can help put together food boxes for struggling families. More ways to get involved can be found at firstfoodbank.org/get-involved/.
St. Vincent De Paul has opportunities to serve meals, sort clothing donations, tutor children, run thrift stores and more at its Phoenix and Tucson locations.
Feed My Starving Children has a location in Mesa where volunteers can pack meals for children suffering from food insecurity.
The Salvation Army has locations across Arizona where volunteers can help at shelters and food drives supporting those in need.
“This is a great time of the year to help,” Brown said. “If you came here during the holidays and enjoyed your experience, come on back out. If you didn’t have an opportunity to go during November and December, and you think, ‘Well, I kind of missed the bus,’ you definitely didn’t. We can use you more now than ever.”