April is Volunteer Appreciation Month. We couldn’t fight hunger without our incredible volunteers at both our Kansas City and Topeka warehouses. On average, each volunteer helped us sort and package 166 lbs. of food per hour last year! They gave 74,106 hours of service, which equates to the work of 36-full time employees.
Tim & Bridget Morris recently retired and decided to ramp up their volunteer hours. They love serving in our Kansas City warehouse.
“It’s just our way of giving back. We used to support Harvesters, before I retired, financially, through the United Way donations, and had it earmarked for Harvesters. But once I retired, that income wasn’t available to donate every week or every month. So this is another way to give back,” said Tim Morris.
The couple’s been volunteering regularly for two years.
“Tim came one time and told me all about it. I’m like, okay. I’m going next. And that was basically it,” said Bridget Morris.
Bridget and Tim typically volunteer twice a week. And because they drive in from an hour away, they work a double shift of four hours each time to help us feed neighbors.
“We always knew there was a need, but you don’t really understand until you come in and see this place, you see the quantity of food that goes out. It’s amazing,” said Tim Morris.
The experience has proven to be rewarding in many ways.
“It’s also really good physical exercise. I mean, let’s be honest. I don’t come out of here without anything. We get a lot out of this. Not only the mental, but the physical advantages are tremendous,” Tim said.
“And the people who work here, they almost treat us like family. They come up and ask how our week’s been. We talk about our kids, our grandkids and show us pictures of their family. Yeah, it’s kind of neat. They know us by name,” said Bridget.
The need for food assistance through the Harvesters network is still nearly 20-percent higher than before the COVID pandemic started. So it’s the perfect time to join the Morrises in the fight against hunger.
“You won’t know it until you do it. You won’t realize, not only the benefit you’re providing to the community, but to yourself. I mean, it’s a boost. It gives us a reason to get up in the morning and get out of the house. It gives us some place to go that’s productive,” Tim said.
Join them and volunteer today: harvesters.org/givetime