Food Bank of Waterloo Region volunteers say giving back is easy
Every year The Food Bank of Waterloo Region operates with the help of nearly 3,000 volunteers.
This year for CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's Sounds of the Season, we visited some of those volunteers while they were hard at work to find out why they decided to get involved.
Penny Cressman
Penny Cressman has been volunteering in the sorting room of the food bank for just over eight years.
"I've always been a volunteer, since high school actually. I used to work at Habitat. I was in charge of family selection for about 11 years and after that I thought 'housing, food, let's try the food bank.' It's an important part of the community."
Adesh Sukrhram
Adesh Sukrham is a student at Huron Heights Secondary School in Kitchener and has been volunteering for the past two months as part of a co-op program.
"Ever since I was a little kid we always used to have the food drives at the elementary schools and I always thought it'd be cool to see the warehouse and see what actually goes on when people donate the food here."
Christine Tolton
Christine Tolton is a special events coordinator for the food bank and has been volunteering for three years and says she loves the passion and commitment of the team she works with.
"When my family comes for Thanksgiving they know that they have to bring a food donation to get our food at our house for Thanksgiving dinner."
John Witzel
John Witzel has been volunteering at the food bank for about a year. He started by driving the truck to pick-up donations at local grocery stores and now puts together food orders for local agencies.
"I've had three girls, three daughters I raised, and it's one of those things, I never needed the food bank but it was always one of those things where I always thought 'Boy I'm glad it's there if I ever did' because especially with raising three kids, having food for them was really important."