The V2 Crew was proud to volunteer our time this last week at one of our favorite non-profit organizations – The Oregon Food Bank. V2 believes this is a very important cause because Oregon in particular is a very hungry state where roughly one in six people are food insecure, meaning they do not know where their next meal is coming from. In fact, the OFB states “ 270,000 people per month eat meals from emergency food boxes, which is about half of Portland’s population, and of those, 92,000 are children. Since the beginning of the Great Recession of 2008, emergency food distribution has increased by 41 percent.”
The Oregon Food Bank provides emergency meals to those in need by using a grass roots or community approach – they rely heavily on local volunteers, partnerships and donors to provide nutritious meals to people in Oregon and SW Washington. They are one of the most innovative Food Banks out there with their Fresh Alliance Program, which provides perishable food like meat, dairy and produce to the hungry. According to OFB, “Since it’s inception, the program has kept 16 million pounds of food from being wasted and has become a national model.”
Volunteers can help with many aspects of the OFB, from repackaging food donations, leading nutrition education classes to maintaining their Learning Gardens, and much more! V2 was able to help this time by re-packaging thousands of pounds of pinto beans! This entailed weighing out the beans, and repackaging them along with some instructions on how to cook and store the beans. These bags were then boxed and stacked on pallets to be shipped out to OFB network of food banks around the state. In our two hour allotted time, V2 alone re-packaged roughly 600 lbs of beans! The entire volunteer group for the day re-packaged 9,530 pounds, which is about 7,942 meals! This equates to roughly 142 meals per volunteer.
It felt good to give back to the community, and we always enjoy our time at the Oregon Food Bank. Their staff is organized, friendly, and passionate about what they do, and it is clear when you volunteer. OFB is currently enrolled in a national competition sponsored by Walmart and Feeding America to fight hunger this fall. The Food Bank that gets the most votes on Facebook as the favorite food bank wins $60,000 in grants. To help OFB, cast a vote each day on your facebook page until Oct. 5th!
Jessica Craig
V2 | Virtual Event Manager