Community Food Basket volunteers enjoy serving

Volunteers play a big part in the community, especially around the holidays.

Joy and Jerry Chrisian have been volunteering at the Community Food Bank for years. “It’s fulfilling,” Joy said. “I love helping other people, and being able to help people with food, especially in the winter is very satisfying for me.”

This organization feeds nearly a thousand hungry people each month, and they rely on volunteers to sort food and fill grocery bags for the people who come here.

“This ministry could not operate without volunteers,” Community Food Basket Executive Director, Dave Manson said. “We only have two paid staff. We have about 80 to 100 regular volunteers plus dozens of others that come on occasion.”

You don’t have to be retired to volunteer. 9th graders Haylie Diego and Chelsey Steele come here every Friday to help stock shelves and fill grocery bags.

“I enjoy making other people happy,” Haylie said. “It makes me happy and my favorite thing to do here is stocking the shelves. It’s really fun.”

“I just felt I needed to help people,” Chelsey Steele said. “It just makes me feel better that I’m helping people.”

A mother from Rigby and her four young children come here a couple times a month.

“There’s not a lot of places the younger ones can help serve, and here they can, and we really appreciate that, and we like that they get to help other people in the community,” Lori Murri said.

These people say something amazing happens when a team of people come together and volunteer for a good cause.

If you’d like to get involved in helping at the Community Food Basket or another service organization, go to justserve.org.