Tracy Mahr will never forget her first day last Wednesday as a Fort Bragg Food Bank volunteer.
“I had an awakening today. I learned I am blessed. So very, very blessed,” she wrote on Facebook.
When I had interviewed her earlier that day, I could tell that she was having trouble taking it all in not unusual for first-time volunteers.
“Frank talked to me for quite a while and then asked me what my first thought was about the Food Bank,” she wrote about my interview. “I thought about it for a minute, and I told him kind. Everyone was just so kind. I found I couldn”t really talk much more after that.”
Our articles have brought in new volunteers in the past. Some have loved it and come back. Others have been shocked at how hard some people are working to survive.
Mahr, who found her voice as she reflected later, recently moved from the Fresno area to Elk to be innkeeper at the Sandpiper House Bed & Breakfast.
“One of my dearest new friends, Pastor Dan Fowler, is the president of the Food Bank [board of directors]. I was talking to him about helping those who need a hand up the other day and how I might serve, and he thought I might like to come volunteer. So today was my first day. I worked “the counter,” meaning I helped the people who were choosing their food items. Wow.”
She was surprised that special foods included vegetarian and those suitable for camping.
“What”s camping got to do with any of this? So I asked Sandy [Nikkar], who was working alongside and training me, what it meant, and she said those items were for people who were living in tents or under bridges and had no way to cook anything. I asked are there a lot of them? And she said sadly, yes there are. I felt sick inside.”
Volunteers needed
Food Bank Executive Director Nancy Severy was thrilled at Mahr and two other new volunteers who arrived last week. But volunteers are short this year.
“We need the equivalent of about eight full-time volunteers each Monday, Wednesday and Friday,” Severy said. She said schedules are flexible and can be accommodated to each volunteer”s availability.
“Some volunteers work just a couple hours a day. Others work up to about six hours a day or even more if we have a special need,” she said. “So on a typical day we would have about 12 to 15 volunteers working at some point during the day.”
That means at least 16 new people are needed.
Budget savings
The Food Bank gets more work out of volunteers than its entire paid staff which allows considerable savings for the budget.
In 2012 volunteers worked 10,978 hours. That equals 5.5 full-time employees working 40 hours per week every week.
Paid staff, by contrast worked 8,713 hours or 4.2 full-time employees. The volunteer expense was $713 for the entire 2012 year.
The Food Bank is at the top of the list of nonprofits utilizing “volunteers” performing community service as part of sentencing in court. Forty percent of the total volunteers hours in 2012 were performed by people working off sentences.
Mahr was amazed at how organized things were, despite the fast pace. Lines were long most of last week, keeping the short crew inside working fast.
“Personally, I love the open, sometimes rollicking, “very real” and personable nature of the Food Bank,” Severy said. “For someone who”s closest co-worker for 20 years was a computer it”s very enlivening (and sometimes aggravating and frustrating), but warm and real, nonetheless.”
“What I observe in many volunteers is that they are folks who like to stay active, are helpful by nature, believe in the mission of the Food Bank and enjoy being with people,” Severy said.
Mahr has time to volunteer on Wednesdays after making breakfast at the inn and before check-ins. She is loving blufftop innkeeping in her new home and felt she had made new friends.
Volunteer coordinator Holly Hawkins was saving her a seat in church. Like many new volunteers, Mahr felt both tired and thankful on her winding way home to Elk.
“On the drive back home, I thought to myself, “Tracy, if you ever needed a lesson to remind you of all you have to be grateful for ….” I will never forget it.”
Season of Sharing
Since the 1996 holiday season, the Advocate-News and The Mendocino Beacon have raised roughly $301,543 for the Food Bank through the Season of Sharing fund drive. Since 1999, the nonprofit Community Foundation of Mendocino County has administered the drive as a courtesy to the newspapers, which means that every penny donated goes directly to the Food Bank.
“There are many dozens of nonprofit organizations in our area, all very worthy of support, but the Food Bank addresses the most basic problem facing hundreds of individuals and families hunger,” said Publisher Sharon DiMauro. “The goal is to give the Food Bank money it can use year-round, not just during the holidays. It doesn”t matter a bit whether a person contributes through our fundraiser or directly to the Food Bank, the main thing is to contribute and if you”re able, to give year-round.”
How to donate
– By check: Make check payable to The Community Foundation of Mendocino County (CFMC) and mail or deliver to the Advocate-News, 450 N. Franklin St., Fort Bragg 95437.
– By credit card: You can pay via CFMC”s website, www.communityfound.org. Click “Donate Online,” then “Poverty Related Funds” and select “Season of Sharing Fund (Fort Bragg Food Bank).
If you have any questions, please call us at 964-5642.
This week”s donors
The names of donors who contribute through the newspapers or CFMC”s website are printed each week, unless they ask to remain anonymous.
At the end of the drive, which runs through Dec. 31, the names of everyone who donates to the 2013 Season of Sharing will be reprinted.
In addition to appearing in the Advocate and The Beacon, the weekly installments are posted on both newspapers” websites.
As of press time Wednesday, the total was $500, thanks to donations from Elizabeth Owings and Fremont DeArmond.
