Brittany Williams

Review of Volunteer @ South Florida XO

Another successful Feeding South Florida saturday!...

Another successful Feeding South Florida saturday!

Feeding South Florida is the largest food bank serving Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. They ensure that families especially children and elders do not go to bed hungry.

Tuesday's through Saturday's, they have sorting events where volunteers can come in and assist with inspecting, sorting and building boxes for delivery. They have two time-frames; 8:30am - 11:30am and 1:30pm - 4:30pm. Be sure to sign up early as only 100 people are allowed for each session.

Ruth the volunteer coordinator is amazing. It is very apparent that this isn't just a job for her; it is a passion. I love seeing the number of volunteers that come from all over to assist. It shows that there are some good people out there. Usually it's businesses (like my group) that are simply just taking time out of their day to give back.

If you have kids that are 12 and older and need community service hours for school, they are allowed to come as well. Sixteen and older can come on their own should the parents not want to come. Obviously 12-15, must be accompanied by an adult. They do offer one Saturday a month (I believe) where kids 6-11 can come and assist with sorting.

The sorting events itself is a lot of fun! Especially if you are with the right group of people. They play music and provide water. Depending on the job that you choose, you just get to work. It's constant movement which I like. It does require some heavy lifting. At the end, we all gather in the orientation room and Ruth tells us how many pounds of food we assisted in sorting. Today we assisted in sorting over 37,000 pounds of food.

It is a very rewarding feeling to know that just volunteering your time for 3 hours can help someone or family tremendously. My job and I will definitely be back again!