By Adam Donnelly

Facing Hunger: Kamloops Food Bank Volunteers

Feb 20, 2019 | 3:59 PM

KAMLOOPS — From January to October of 2018, the Kamloops Food Bank helped feed over 6,000 residents of our city, while supplying perishable and non-perishable food to over 60 different community agencies who feed those in need. Since the beginning of 2019, CFJC Today has been documenting the food bank; from how they get nearly two million pounds of food from across the community, to the volunteers who work countless hours to make sure that food gets to those who need it. In part two of the series, ‘Facing Hunger’ looks at how much work and dedication volunteers pour into their service.

In 2018, the Kamloops Food Bank collected close to 2 million pounds of perishable and non-perishable food items they used to help feed over 7,000 clients and supply 60 community agencies helping feed those in need. So who is responsible for sorting through the food donations, building hampers and dealing with clients, not to mention cleaning and maintaining the facilities at the Food Bank headquarters?

It’s thanks to an army of dedicated volunteers that the food bank is able to keep up with the need in Kamloops. In the second part of our four-part series ‘Facing Hunger’, we look at Food Bank Volunteers, and why they give their time to help feed those in need in our community.

Monday morning at the Kamloops Food Bank. As clients filter in and out of the facility, picking up their hampers, an army of volunteers tools away in the warehouse, sorting through hundreds of pounds of donated perishable and non-perishable food.

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“We’re checking all the products that come in to see if the cans are dented, check best before date, mark off the barcodes and them sort them up into boxes that get put away and later get put into hampers,” Volunteer Joan Skelton explains.

Skelton used to work in the auto parts industry, but is now retired. For the past 9 months, she’s been volunteering at the Kamloops Food Bank.

“I feel really blessed in what I’ve got in my life, and there are some people who really struggle, through no fault of their own to make ends meet,” Skelton says. “It just spoke to me that I wanted to be here and help.”

Ian Fordyce and his wife Lynn are also retired and moved from the Cariboo in the summer of 2017.

“We lived in Williams Lake for 20 years,“ Fordyce explains. “We came down to Kamloops two and a half years ago and we were looking for a place to volunteer. I was brought up as a believer in Christ and serving has been part of my nature for the better part of my adult life.”

For Ian, getting to know the inner-workings of the Food Bank has been quite a journey, one which convinced him this was the right place to volunteer.

“When we came here it was extremely busy because of the (2017) forest fires,” Fordyce says. “It gave us an idea of how huge (the Food Bank) was and how well connected it is into the community. It’s just amazing.”

Both Ian and Joan have time to give, and after learning more about the role the Kamloops Food Bank fills in the community they chose to give that time there. It’s a theme Food Bank Administration hears regularly from the folks giving their time.

“Like attracts like,” Executive Director Bernadette Siracky says. “It attracts people who have a generous heart, who have compassion, who are hard workers, who want a sense of community.”

“We have a really strong group of volunteer base that stays for an extended period time,” Siracky adds. “We don’t have a high turnover when it comes to staff or volunteers, because this is a very special place to be.”

Many of the volunteers like Ian and Joan agree on the positive personal impact volunteering at the food bank has on their lives, and by helping the clients of the food bank, they’re serving their community in a meaningful way.

“I’m more of a people person, so eventually I managed to… volunteer at the front and I just thrive in this environment,” Fordyce says. “It’s people for me. I love people.”

Skelton agrees: it’s all about the people the Food Bank serves.

“In the days that I work at the front it’s amazing how thankful and grateful they are,” Skelton says. “There’s one gentleman who always leaves saying ‘thank you food bank, thank you, volunteers, I couldn’t make it without you.’”

For more pieces in the series, go here.