Fight Hunger! Food Rescue Assistant

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1-2 Volunteer(s) needed per day, 1.5 to 2 hours each day, Monday through Friday, with their own vehicles, on an ongoing basis to assist Midtown staff to pick up donated food from specific grocery stores in West San Jose, Campbell, and Los Gatos, deliver the food to Midtown Family Services, then put on shelves. On most days, the latter task is completed before 10:00am. Persons who serve on Tuesday and Fridays are invited to remain to assist with distribution of food as neighbors come through from 10:00am to 11:00pm.

Pick up days/times/general locations/additional information about sites available:

• Monday: grocery is in West San Jose; pickup time is 8:00am; food will be unboxed; the staff member driving the Midtown Family Services van will bring 30 empty banana boxes, on a heavy day we will use all, on a light day we will use half; after volunteers and staff meet up in the parking lot, we will enter the store through the recieving door carrying half of the empty banana boxes, sign in with the recieving clerk, retrieve 2 6-wheel stocking carts to carry our banana boxes through the store on, visit various locations within the store, box what we find set aside for us at each location returning to our vehicle as needed to get more empty banana boxes, return to the recieving area, provide a reciept for what we have picked up with the recieving clerk, then role what we have picked up out to our vehicles on the 6-wheel stocking carts, transfer banana boxes to vehicles, roll the stocking carts back into the recieving area, then drive to Midtown Family Services, typically arriving about 9:00am.
• Tuesday: grocery is in West San Jose; pickup time is 8:30am; food will be boxed or crated, on a heavy day, there will be 10 crates of milk, 1-2 boxes of eggs each with 12 1-dozen cartons of eggs, 6 boxes of bread, and 2 boxes of mixed; after volunteers and staff meet up in the parking lot, we enter the grocery through the recieving area, find the assistant store manager, follow her through the store as she picks up the boxed or crated food for us from various departments, provide a reciept for what we have picked up to the assistant store manager, wheel the donated food out to our vehicles on the cart they provide, transfer food to vehicles, return cart to recieving area, then drive to Midtown Family Services, typically arriving at Midtown Family Services by 9:15am.
• Wednesday: grocery is in Los Gatos; pickup time is 8:00am; food will be boxed, on a heavy day there may be 30 boxes, on a light day 20 boxes; after volunteers and staff meet up in the parking lot, we walk to the recieving area together picking up two 6-wheel stocking carts as we do from an outside equipment storage area, ring the buzzer on the recieving area door, wait to be let in usually by the store manager who will call over the loudspeaker for donations to be delivered to us in recieving area once we are inside, our typical wait time for the boxed food to be delivered to us from various departments will be about 10 minutes, once all departments have brought their goods to us, we provide a reciept for the food to the manager or whoever is assisting her, role the food back to our vehicle, transfer boxed food to our vehicle, role the carts back to the storage area, then drive to Midtown Family Services where will arrive most days by 9:00am.
• Thursday: grocery is in Campbell: pickup time is 8:00am; food will be unboxed; the staff member driving the Midtown Family Services van will bring 24 empty banana boxes with him, on a light day we will use half; once volunteers and staff meetup they will walk to the recieving door; most of the time the door is open so we simply enter then look for the recieving staff; recieving staff will call for donation over the loudspeaker, staff from the various departments will role donated food to us loose in standard grocery carts which we will then role to our vehicles to box. Once food is boxed we provide a reciept to whoever assisted us, then drive to Midtown Family Services
• Friday: same location/time/experience as Wednesday.

Requirements:

• Volunteers must complete Second Harvest of Silicon Valley's online training module.
• Volunteers must have insurance on their vehicles and complete a liability waiver.
• Volunteers must be physically up to the task as food can be heavy. A crate containing 12 half-gallons of milk weighs about 52 pounds. A banana box filled with canned goods can weigh close to the same. A banana box full of of bread typically weighs half that.

Benefits

• the good you do for others - 300 persons per month, each with 4 persons on average in their families, pick up food from us 1 or more times each week;
• you will get your steps in with some moderate resistance as well;
• we will be thankful to have you.