From Packing Food to Reclaiming Produce—Volunteers Power Our Work

Happy Volunteer Appreciation Month!

April is Volunteer Appreciation Month, and we want to celebrate our incredible volunteers! From packing food in our warehouse to reclaiming produce to office support to serving participants at one of our Fare for All Sites, volunteers are always at the heart of our work at The Food Group. We are grateful to every volunteer who gives their time, skills, and passion to create food for today and change for tomorrow.

Volunteers come to The Food Group with many different stories, but they always share a deep-rooted passion for ending hunger and caring for community. Here are just a few of their inspiring stories!

Patricia Fair, Warehouse Volunteer

Patricia Fair grew up around food: “From a young age, I had some understanding of the importance of food and the importance of access to food.” Pat’s family owned a potato farm in Northern Hennepin County and sold locally grown fruit and vegetables out of an old gas station. Pat recalls selling sweet corn still warm from the sun, radishes and onions lovingly harvested by seasonal workers, and fresh strawberries.

Over time, Pat saw that many people struggled to put food on the table: “I wasn’t consciously aware of food insecurity until I was older. Now, I see access to food as a fundamental human right.” Once she became aware of food insecurity, she knew she had to do something:

I can’t profess to care about hunger, and hungry people, while choosing not to do something I have the ability to do.

Pat began volunteering and became even more involved during COVID-19, noting that there was a lot of work to do and fewer people to get it done. That suited Pat—she likes to keep moving. “I liked feeling like I had permission to make suggestions on how to be more efficient and get more done with the available resources.” She also didn’t mind surprising others with her tenacious can-do attitude:

As an almost 71-year-old woman, I liked and still like the fact that I can surprise people by my ability—and willingness—to lift 40+ pounds, keep moving, and just do what needs to be done to get stuff done.

We asked Pat why folks should volunteer at The Food Group. Her answer was beautifully simple: “Because you can.”

Priyah Moua, Warehouse Volunteer

Priyah Moua saw food insecurity firsthand growing up in Minnesota. Priyah shared that she grew up in a red-lined Saint Paul community. Redlining is a discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods populated largely by racial and ethnic minorities. Redlining made minority groups in Priyah’s community more vulnerable to food insecurity. She recalls relying on a combination of “coupons, food banks, and food shelves.”  Her childhood experiences made her passionate about anti-hunger work—and she even completed an entire college research paper on food banks!

It’s a new project and experiment that we’re all going through. But it’s also amazing that they got a great deal on it, and it’s locally farmed.

We asked Priyah why people should volunteer at The Food Group. She said that “food banks and food shelves are such an important factor in our community.” She added that volunteering at food shelves and food banks like The Food Group is critical because of the greater impact of redlining on marginalized communities and increased hunger as a result. Priyah finished with this poignant observation:

Everyone needs a place at the table, everyone needs to eat, everyone’s human—and that’s one of the most important things.

Lee Goedeken, Warehouse and Farm Volunteer 

Lee Goedeken has volunteered with The Food Group since January 2023. Lee is invested in anti-hunger work because he believes we have a collective responsibility to care for each other. He shared:

I think [food insecurity] is the highest injustice and everybody’s responsibility if even a single person is going without food in our community.

Lee loves volunteering with The Food Group because the work feels tangible and always leaves him fulfilled:

I’ve struggled with feeling powerless against the dehumanizing forces in the world, but at least I can feel somewhat empowered every time I go to help even a little bit.

9 million food shelf visits in 2024, almost triple before COVID. If we don’t take care of each other, nobody will. You’ll never regret working to put good healthy food on people’s tables.

Pat Sackett, Office Volunteer

Pat Sackett has a deep family heritage in making sure people are fed. Pat’s mother “spent her life feeding people” and never got used to cooking for a smaller group when her five other daughters left home. Pat recalled “she used to make pots of chili and take those down to Saint Ben’s for their weekly food service.”

Pat and her sisters inherited their mother’s community-mindedness. Today, all five of them are involved with their local food shelves:

They’re either in the office, the warehouse, or on the lines feeding people—so we’re all doing something. It’s kind of a family heritage.

Pat is drawn to anti-hunger work because “food is such a basic need. And if people don’t have it, there’s so much that follows from that.” When she retired from her work as a chemist in 2008, she had a lot more time on her hands. So, she decided to give some of it to work that mattered to her.

Pat started volunteering with The Food Group in 2008 when it was known as The Emergency Food Shelf Network. She’s been a steady volunteer in The Food Group’s New Hope office for 16 years, mostly handling critical database entry and other administrative support but stepping up wherever she was needed. When asked why she likes volunteering with The Food Group, she replied with trademark humor: “I keep coming back—how else am I going to spend a Tuesday morning?”

We asked Pat why folks should volunteer at The Food Group. In reply, Pat shared some sage wisdom:

If you have been given much, you need to repay a lot, so this is a wonderful way to do that.

Thank You, Volunteers!

Volunteers make our work possible. This Volunteer Appreciation Month and every day, The Food Group recognizes the labor and passion of each volunteer creating food for today and change for tomorrow. Thank you for everything you do to lift up community and support our mission!

Interested in volunteering with The Food Group?