TULSA, Okla. — Nonprofit Food on the Move held their annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner to recognize all the hard work their volunteers do to help others throughout the year.
“Tonight is our Volunteer Appreciation Dinner,” said Food on the Move Program Director Rusty Rowe. “We do this once a year. April is Volunteer Month. You know, every month has a theme now, so April is all about volunteerism. We like to do an appreciation for all of our volunteers.”
Rowe said the event is to honor all volunteers, but there’s a moment dedicated to volunteers who have dedicated a large amount of their time to helping others through Food on the Move.
“We had 11,000 volunteers last year and we do a special thing for those that have done more than 50 volunteer hours in a single year. We give them a green apron, so if you ever come out to any of our events you’ll see the majority of people have blue aprons on. It may be their first time ever volunteering with us, but you know the green apron people you could go to them and ask them questions. They’re kind of the leads and this year we had 13 new green aprons being inducted and we’ve had 46 total.”
Rowe explained how Food on the Move helps the Tulsa community.
“We have three large sized distributions we do every month where we hand out thousands of pounds of produce, hundreds of hot meals and have partner agencies that deal with everything from mental and physical health, job placement, education opportunities, all kinds of family assistance programs. We do those three times a year. We also do some neighborhood canvassing to tell people about those. We do community gardens, so a lot of our volunteers like to get their hands dirty and do gardening. Then we have little one-offs where we’re packing food boxes for homeless or whatever thing we think we can make an impact with that month.”
Volunteer Peggy Howe explained why she and her husband Mike keep coming back to volunteer at Food on the Move.
“This is the most rewarding thing that you can do and it’s instant gratification. You give people food right then, right there. It’s something that you can give and they leave with food. It’s so awesome and my parents and Mike’s parents volunteered all their lives and so they passed it onto us. It’s just phenomenal how you feel when you volunteer for Food on the Move. You leave every time you volunteer [and] you just feel wonderful.”
Rowe said it’s thanks to volunteers like Peggy and Mike Food on the Move is able to accomplish so much.
“We can’t do any of this without our volunteers. We started as a volunteer-led organization. Food on the Move didn’t have a single paid employee until 2019. We’d already been around for five years before we got our first paid employee. It was all volunteers.”
Rowe stated they’re always happy to accept more volunteers, explaining children can even volunteer as long as they’re accompanied by an adult.
To learn more about Food on the Move, their policies, programs and volunteer opportunities, you can visit their website at foodonthemoveok.com.
发表回复