Volunteerism at a Glance: Hunger action month and beyond

September was Hunger Action Month. Hunger Action Month is designed to invite folks to engage in the difficult work of preventing and ending hunger in our country. At Berkeley Food Network, we are acutely aware of hunger in our community. With the need for our services tripling during the pandemic and continuing to grow throughout 2021, we want to invite members of our community to get involved and stay involved in the work we do at BFN. 

We are so grateful for the dedication of our volunteers and what they do to help us achieve our mission of eliminating hunger in Berkeley and Albany. This September our volunteers contributed an amazing amount of work to Berkeley Food Network. We had 125+ unique volunteers come to our site, with an average of 2.8 shifts per volunteer. One of our volunteers worked 16 shifts! All of this dedication totaled to over 900 hours of service. 

The work of our volunteers is crucial to achieving our mission, and we are grateful for their dedication and commitment to serving their community. As we move past Hunger Action Month and into the holiday season, we are asking our community members to get involved by volunteering with Berkeley Food Network. We have a goal of serving 8,000 individuals a week by the end of the year, and rely on the generosity and dedication of our current volunteers — and future volunteers — to reach this goal! If you have friends, family, or colleagues who want to get involved in the action, please encourage them to reach out to volunteer@www.berkeleyfoodnetwork.org, or to sign up directly on our website at berkeleyfoodnetwork.org/events