Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank experiencing "critical" volunteer shortage
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- As high energy bills and inflation put a pinch on your wallet, the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank is here to help feed our community. However, the nonprofit is in critical need of more people to volunteer because they don't have enough people to help give food to our neighbors.
Maria Montaro, the food bank's manager of corporate and community giving, said staff fills in and the wait times get long when they don't have enough volunteers. Right now, they're short by about 75 volunteers each week and this is happening as more people are coming through their doors.
"It's really important that we have enough volunteers to be able to run smoothly," said Montaro.
Volunteers would be at the onsite pantry called The Market for shifts that last for three and a half to four hours.
"We're serving about 120 families every single day and so those volunteers are helping out as shopping buddies, stocking shelves, checking folks in and out," Montaro said.
Tom Scheid said he's volunteered at the food bank for about eight years.
"Just the fact that people are out there waiting for the doors to open, obviously the need is there," Scheid said.
During that time, he said he's seen the need in our community.
"We're not giving people a handout, we're just giving them a hand up," said Scheid.
Both he and volunteer Paula Harris said they understand the value of their time serving.
"Of course it makes you feel good, and you can only hope that -- I can only hope that if I was in that situation that someone would have the same mindset and say, 'we need to get food out to them,'" Harris said.
The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank serves across 11 counties. Forty-two million meals were distributed last year, which exceeds the number of meals distributed during the pandemic, and they need more help for more meals to go to our friends and family now.
"Oh, come on down, it's so much fun. And as I said, you'll really appreciate it. It's a great group of people," Harris.
Volunteer hours are on Monday through Friday. You can register to volunteer as a group or individual. Individual volunteers ages 18 and up can sign up at pittsburghfoodbank.org/volunteer. To schedule a group to volunteer, email the volunteer team at volunteer@pittsburghfoodbank.org. Groups of five to 15 volunteers are most helpful to the organization.