Help provide food for Sand Point community in Magnuson Park.
About the Magnuson Park Food Pantry
The Magnuson Park Community Food Pantry is a popup food bank supported by four community organizations: Solid Ground, the University District Food Bank, the YMCA, and Mercy Housing. It serves Mercy Housing and Solid Ground’s Sand Point Housing campus residents in the Sand Point neighborhood. The Magnuson Park neighborhood was designated a food desert and was an area of concern for hunger due to the limited public transportation options and lack of surrounding grocery stores. To try and combat the food insecurity in this area, we opened a pantry with a small variety of food including some fresh produce. Operations began in August of 2019 and serve about 110 households each week, including residents of Solid Ground’s Sand Point Housing campus nearby.
Food Pantry Volunteers
There are a wide variety of volunteer roles at the food bank. New volunteers will be trained onsite at the food pantry day of. Volunteers can assist with the following tasks:
- Unloading food deliveries
- Distributing food
- Keeping stations well stocked
- Welcoming patrons and providing information and direction as needed
- Assisting staff with setup of the food bank in the morning and cleanup in the afternoon
- Repacking dry bulk goods, recycling empty boxes, double bagging, and other miscellaneous tasks
Time Commitment
The food pantry is open every Wednesday from 11am-2pm, with volunteer shifts from 9:30am-12pm and 11:30am-2pm (or volunteers can do both shifts). Both one-time and ongoing regular volunteer opportunities are available to individuals and groups.
Qualifications
- Must be 18 years or older, or 14+ with an adult chaperone.
- Ability to work with staff, volunteers, and participants with a variety of racial, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, lifestyles, and sexual orientations.
- Ability to commit to regular volunteer shifts for at least 6 months is preferred.
- Generally, this role involves sitting, standing, and lifting bags of food up to 50 pounds. Solid Ground does and will make accommodations to people of differing abilities.
For more information, please check out the full volunteer role description on the University District Food Bank webpage. Questions about the food pantry? Email magparkpantry@udistrictfoodbank.org.
Scroll down to apply & view upcoming volunteer orientations.
BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color), and people with the lived experience of poverty are strongly encouraged to apply. This opportunity also qualifies as an RSVP (Retired and Senior Volunteer Program) activity.
Solid Ground believes poverty is solvable.
Volunteers play a critical role in helping us meet basic needs, nurture success, and promote change – so everyone in our community can achieve their full potential.