When you volunteer, you give a part of yourself - your time, energy, skills and feelings. You give to your family and friends, to your neighbors and to your community. You also reap personal benefits and enhance your personal growth!

An important benefit in being a Food Bank volunteer is the great feeling that you get knowing you’re helping out hungry people in Central New York. You can make a real difference in the lives of so many in need.

Weekdays, 9am to 4pm: Most of our volunteer opportunities occur in our warehouse, such as sorting, shelving, and boxing of food, along with miscellaneous tasks. Warehouse volunteers must be 14 years of age or older; groups of volunteers are limited to 5 persons, maximum. 

We may also need occasional help in the office with filing or large mailings (stuffing envelopes, labeling, etc.), or in maintaining our garden during the spring and summer months.  These opportunities have no age limit and groups are welcome.

Weekend, Evening, and Other Opportunities: We use volunteers for other special projects throughout the year ... such as shoppers to check participating stores for our Check Out Hunger campaign in January and February, and volunteers to help plant container gardens in late May/early June for our Garden in a Bucket program.  We may also need hands for our Golf Open in July or our Savor Syracuse fundraiser in April, to help with registration, selling raffle tickets, setting up, etc.  Other opportunities may include picking vegetables at a local farm or something we haven't thought of yet!

For more information on current opportunities, or to leave a message about other volunteer ideas, please call the Food Bank of CNY Volunteer Hotline at (315) 437-1899 and press *346, or email blare@foodbankcny.org.  You can also see our current volunteer opportunities online -- visit www.unitedway-cny.org, and under Today's Hot Links, choose 1-800-Volunteer.org.  All Food Bank of Central New York volunteer opportunities will be listed there.