Your Presence Is Critical
Have you ever been stood up for a lunch date or a meeting? You’re expecting someone to arrive but they don’t show. It’s frustrating, isn’t it?
When individuals or groups schedule a volunteer shift and then they don’t show up, it’s more than just frustrating – it impacts our entire organization, our network of hunger relief partners and most importantly, the people we work so hard to feed.
Monday – Saturday, we have orders to fill, food to sort, boxes to pack and this needs to happen whether we have volunteers or not. We depend on volunteers, especially large groups, to be here when they’re scheduled. And sadly, when they don’t call and don’t show or arrive with a much smaller group than we have scheduled, it makes things at the food bank extremely difficult.
What happens? Sometimes staff who work in other areas of the building are pulled away from their jobs to help. Sometimes we have to pay for temporary help to make sure the food gets distributed. And what’s worse, we may have turned other volunteers away because we thought our schedule was full.
Please know how important every volunteer hour is to our organization. We understand tires go flat, people get sick, workflow changes. But we also count on everyone who says they’ll volunteer to be here and to let us know as soon as they can, should a conflict arise that prevents them from volunteering.
The impact volunteers bring to Food Bank of the Rockies is powerful and amazing. Because you help, we distribute more than 130,000 needed meals each and every day. Thank you for your compassion, your dedication and for being present when we’re counting on you. And for letting us know when you can’t be here too.
We appreciate you!