United We Serve (Good Food)

Michelle Obama won points from the sustainable food community when she broke ground on the White House organic vegetable garden. But what got less press (or at least seemed to in my admittedly foodie-focused world) was that in addition to being cooked in the White House kitchen, some of the produce is being donated to Miriam’s Kitchen, an organization that helps the homeless in Washington D.C.

That brings me to another Michelle Obama-oriented initiative, and the purpose of this post: United We Serve, the "administration's nationwide summer of service initiative" that started last week on June 22nd and is running through September 11.  (For more info, please see the video below)

A fundamental expression of human generosity is to feed others, and that is even more prevalent with people who love food. It’s as natural as breathing for people who love to cook and eat to make manifest their compassion and empathy through the gift of food.

And so I thought that many of the people who would come to this site might like to combine their interest in and love of food, cooking, and edible gardening with opportunities to help others in the community who might need some assistance, kindness or just a solid, healthy meal.

Here are some resources for you to find those opportunities in the Seattle area, and one piece of advice from my own experience as both a volunteer and volunteer wrangler. Some smaller organization have the great intentions and programs but small staffs, especially for volunteer organizing. So if you contact one to volunteer and don’t hear back, try again! They will probably appreciate your persistence and it might just take a couple tries to get you connected to the right person.

General Resources for Volunteer Opportunity Searching

• United We Serve has its own volunteer search center at Serve.gov with opportunities gleaned from several other sites.
• One such site is my personal favorite, VolunteerMatch.org.
• United Way of King County has listings.
• So does the Seattle City Government site.
• You can also look on OneBrick’s site, an organization that looks to combine volunteering and social networking. 

Helping Others Through Edible Gardening & Harvesting

• Lettuce Link works to bring healthy produce to lower-income areas and food banks. The program works with P-patches and includes a Community Tree Harvest Program and Marra Farms, “a model urban community farm.”
• You can also help out at your local P-Patch. Most “maintain a garden plot dedicated to growing fresh organic produce for those in need [and] donate 7-10 tons of produce to area food banks.” There are other events and one-time work parties for those who can’t make a regular commitment.
• Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle helps “distribute the abundance of fresh local produce from residential fruit trees and vegetable gardens.” Some volunteer needs include: scouting trees, checking fruit, delivering to food banks, administrative and organizational needs, Edible Garden Tour/Fair planning and more.  Summertime is harvest time so contact them soon for upcoming volunteer orientations!

General Food Bank Volunteering Opportunities

• University District Food Bank
• West Seattle Food Bank
• Hunger Intervention Program
• Operation Sack Lunch
• Northwest Harvest
• Food Lifeline (Also through Food Lifeline, for food pros, there is the Seattle Table “program designed to rescue unused, but wholesome prepared food from food service providers such as restaurants, hotels, caterers, and corporate cafeterias.”)
• If you are an acoustic musician, FamilyWorks, a food bank and family center, is looking for people to play “calm and yet invigorating [music] for people waiting on line for the food bank.” 

Hunger & Nutrition for Targeted Populations

• The YWCA has opportunities for a Meal Preparer for Weekly HIV or Young Parents Support Groups, Food Bank Pick-Up Drivers and others.
• Lifelong AIDS Alliance provides support to those whose lives are affected by HIV and AIDS. You can help with preparing and/or delivering meals.
• Greenwood Senior Center often needs volunteer cooks and servers.
• Apple Corps and Operation Frontline are two programs that focus on education and nutrition for underserved populations.
• Food Security for Children and the Grocery Delivery Project for seniors and people living with disabilities help bring good nutrition to potentially vulnerable populations.
• Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS) Food Bank is "one of the most-used food banks in King County, distributing more than 126,000 pounds of food per month to over 6,000 households. It is also the only food bank in Washington that regularly distributes foods for Asian and Pacific Islander diets." You can sort and distribute food and/or work on the annual Walk for Rice event.
• Senior Services “is the most comprehensive non-profit agency serving older adults and their loved ones in Washington State.” Their volunteer needs include delivering Meals on Wheels, and Kitchen and Dining Assistants or Registrar for their Community Dining Sites.

Charitable Events

Also don't forget: you can always filter the Food Events Calendar to just show you those food events that are in support of a good cause.

If you are an organization that would like to be added to this listing or with an event for the calendar, please let me know.

Update on Jun 29, 2009 by Leslie Seaton

I just re-read the opening to this post (which, you might have noticed by the posting time, was done kind of late at night and when one is prone to quality control issues) and got a smidge annoyed with myself.

I hate it when I read something that presupposes I know nothing about the topic at hand (unless it's explicitly geared towards a total novice) because then it can come across as condescending or a little full of oneself. 

Most of what I write here IS geared towards a total novice or someone who is just new to a particular world of things.  And so just wanted to add this coda that that is also true for this post because I am sure that a lot of people who read this site already ARE volunteering their time and effort and I am no Einstein for suggesting these ideas. 

Anyway, this is probably just putting too fine a point on things, but somehow felt the need to clarify AND to say if you are one of those people who is already helping out in the community in a food-related way and might want to let us know how in the comments, I'd love to hear it!