Ways to Support

Volunteer Opportunities

Possible Volunteer Projects
Volunteer Hours
What do we do?
Frequently Asked Questions
Contact the Volunteer Department

"Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. And you can be that servant."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Food Bank hosts hundreds of volunteers each week to help in every part of operations.

Possible volunteer projects include:

Sorting And Repackaging Food
Leading Education Programs
Staffing Special Events
Preparing Mailings
Monitoring Agencies
Working On Our CSA Farm In Upper Marlboro, MD
Helping Glean Produce With WAGN
Helping Out At Our Nova Branch
Advocacy Works
Sharing any other talents or ideas you may have

A New Volunteer Opportunity - Children and Nutrition Programs

There is a place for everyone - Individuals, Religious Groups, Youth Groups, School Groups, Corporate Groups, Civic Groups and others.

Volunteer hours, by appointment only:

Tuesday through Saturday from 9am till 12pm or 1pm till 4pm

Additional hours for volunteer groups only:
The first Sunday of the month from 9am till 12pm or 1pm till 4pm
The fourth Wednesday of the month from 6:30pm till 8:30pm

Volunteer hours at our warehouse in Lorton, VA:
The second Saturday of the month from 9am till 12pm, space is limited.

Please join us and share your time and talents for the benefit of others.

What do we do?

Last year, over 12,000 volunteers assisted the Capital Area Food Bank sorting and sending food to those in need. These volunteers assisted distributing over 20 million pounds of food and fresh produce in the Washington Metro Area.

Our volunteers work on projects such as the Food For Kid's Weekend Bag Program. This program distributes food bags, ensuring that children who rely on free lunch and reduced school breakfasts and lunches eat over the weekend. Also, volunteers sort donated non-perishable food items that we will send to our 750 member agencies for distribution to those in need. Or volunteers could work on the Senior's Brown Bag Program. For this program, volunteers put together bags of food for senior citizens on fixed incomes.

Individuals will most likely help in our warehouse with other groups. You may work on several projects, dependent on the size of your group. Most activities involve some type of food sorting. This includes sorting food drive items into bins or boxes, repacking boxes of food, sorting out by food categories, or re-labeling boxes. Day to day activities can vary due to what is coming into our warehouse. The most common task for volunteers is sorting food in our warehouse, we rely on volunteers to help ready this food for distribution to our agencies.

Contact Us

To volunteer or for more information, please send an email to volunteer@cfoodbank.org. Or you can call Myra Cruz at 202-526-5344 ext. 235, or Oye Omorogbe at 202-526-5344 ext. 286.

To volunteer or for more information to work at our Lorton, Virginia warehouse, please contact Tom Carroll at 703-541-3063 ext. 14 or email volunteerlorton@cfoodbank.org.