VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
Memphis groups need volunteers to help fight hunger
Giving Tuesday is a global movement to encourage people worldwide to give back to theircommunities. h Givingtuesday.org reminds us that whether it’s something as simple as making someone smile, helping out a neighbor or stranger, showing up for an issue or people we care about, or giving some of what we have to those who need our help, every act of generosity counts and everyone has something to give. h Organizations across Memphis that help feed those experiencing hunger and food insecurity can use financial donations — but they can also use your time. h The Mid-south Food Bank, MIFA and Catholic Charities are all experiencing greater demand than they ever have before. The statistics show food insecurity in Memphis is at an all-time high. h Here is how you can give your time to help these organizations reduce hunger safely during a pandemic.
MIFA: Deliver Meals
Meals on Wheels is MIFA’S assistance program that provides hot meals to homebound elderly residents across the city. On any given weekday, they provide meals to more than 2,500 clients, with many of the meals hand-delivered in one of the 36 daily routes.
Volunteer drivers arrive at the MIFA headquarters at 9 a.m. to load their cars with the day’s deliveries. Hot meals and cold meals are placed in two separate coolers. The whole experience is basically contact-less as coolers are brought out on carts for drivers to load into their own cars.
Volunteers can choose to have the route, which includes on average 10 to 12 stops, printed out or use a smartphone app that links to your phone’s navigation app. Each route takes about an hour to complete, making the total time (including picking up at MIFA and returning the empty coolers) about two hours.
Linda Hamilton started volunteering with MIFA this past year.
“I am very fortunate that I have never had to worry where my next meal will come from. This is my way to give back to those who didn’t have the opportunities that I have had,”
Hamilton said.
“I love Meals on Wheels because I make relationships with people I might never have met in my day-to-day life. Sometimes I'm the only one they see for long periods of time. Especially during COVID, but really all the time, we need to take care of one another and I feel I need to do my part.”
Currently, MIFA has only about 65% of the volunteers it needs to operate each daily route.
To volunteer, visit mifa.org and click on the “Volunteer” tab.
Catholic Charities: Assemble Food Boxes and Walking Lunch Bags
Catholic Charities of West Tennessee hosts a daily food pantry every weekday at 85 N. Cleveland. 70 walking lunch bags are handed out to homeless people every day and more than 100 supplemental food boxes are distributed daily.
Because the need has grown larger than the Downtown facility can accommodate, Catholic Charities has created a food warehouse at St. Anne Catholic Church on Highland.
Each weekday, a handful of volunteers arrive to assemble the supplemental food boxes, each containing about 15 pounds of canned and packaged foods, and the lunch bags, known by Catholic Charities as “Protein Walking Bags.” Volunteers are masked and can move throughout the assembly line socially distanced. Each shift is 2 hours.
Carol Bigham has been a volunteer for Catholic Charities for close to 10 years, and has been helping with the food pantry supplies for about a year. “The motto of Catholic Charities is to serve love and help thy neighbors,” she said. “We were put on this Earth to help others.”
On a recent Thursday afternoon, she and six other volunteers assembled over three pallets of supplemental food boxes, providing meals for more than 168 families experiencing food insecurity.
Families wishing to volunteer together can sign up for shifts that are for their family only. “We have had families with elementary age children assemble over a pallet of boxes,” said Mandy Lamey, Catholic Charities' manager of volunteer engagement.
To volunteer, visit ccwtn.org and click on the “Volunteer” tab.
Mid-south Food Bank: Help with a Mobile Food Pantry
The Mid-south Food Bank, which serves 31 counties in the region, is distributing 5.5 million pounds of food per month now, compared to the pre-coVID-19 monthly average of 1.5 million pounds. The food is going out to shelters and soup kitchens that feed homeless people, as well as to mobile food pantries that are providing food for the thousands of Mid-southerners experiencing food insecurity, many for the first time.
More than 200 mobile pantries are happening each month in the MidSouth right now, each feeding 300 to 500 families per distribution.
One way you can help is to volunteer to distribute food at one of these many mobile food pantries. This volunteer opportunity is about 5 hours long. To find a food pantry near you, go online to midsouthfoodbank.org and click on the “Find Food” tab. Contact the agency directly to see how you can help, or you can email volunteer@midsouthfoodbank.org to be connected with a mobile food pantry in need of volunteers.
Idlewild Presbyterian Church has hosted a weekly mobile food pantry since the first Wednesday in March. "What we have learned in the pandemic is how close to the edge so many people live, and that food insecurity is a real thing in Memphis," Idlewild Associate Pastor Anne Apple said.
"We are grateful for the people that show up and make a difference in our city," she said of the volunteers who come out every week to lend a hand.
The Mid-south Food Bank needs help sorting and packing the food that goes out to its partner agencies.
Volunteers, including groups, can sign up to go to the food bank's warehouse and help sort and pack food for distribution. Each sorting and packing shift is about 2 hours.
“The groups will be smaller this year and spaced out, observing all COVIDrelated rules,” said Clifton Rockett, director of volunteer services. He noted that volunteer opportunities are updated weekly on the website.
To volunteer, visit midsouthfoodbank.org and click on the “Volunteer” tab.
Jennifer Chandler is the Food & Dining reporter at The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at jennifer.chandler@commercialappeal.com and you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @cookwjennifer.