Food Bank asking for volunteers for harvest season

The Idaho Food Bank has put out a call for volunteers.

The food bank said it can always use more volunteers, but it’s especially important and needed now because of harvest season. During harvest season, the food bank gets a lot of fresh produce and it needs help to sort, bag and prep the produce to go to families in need. The food bank said often times, that produce comes in by the truckload and so the more helping hands, the better.

Jim Beitz, branch manager of the eastern Idaho branch in Pocatello, said the Pocatello location moves about five million pounds of food per year and has eight employees. So the more help they can get, the better.

Beitz said it doesn’t have to be long hours, any time and service you can give is appreciated and helpful.

“If you can come and work for an hour, that’s great,” Beitz said. “If you have a half hour to spare on your lunch hour during our walk-in shifts, come on in. There’s something to do. If repacking food isn’t your thing, we have a whole warehouse, we have administrative work, we have other things that we can probably find to do too.”

Beitz said they can schedule groups of volunteers, such as Boy Scout Groups or company teams. Beitz said if you want to volunteer individually, you can look at the volunteer section on the Food Bank’s website to see what times are available for walk-in help.

Beitz said it’s important people remember that any help they give is helping a family in need in Idaho.