St. Johns Community Services’ Full Story
Volunteers have been at the core of Food & Friends for our nearly 30-year history. The thousands of volunteers who have come through our doors in that time came largely out of a desire to give back to their community and help others in need.
Each Monday through Thursday, we welcome volunteers from St. John’s Community Services. These men and women living with developmental disabilities carry out important work, including labeling entrees and grocery bags and participating in food deliveries.
There is often stereotyping of people living with disabilities, whereby they’re regarded primarily as service recipients. Here at Food & Friends we turn that around—people with limitations join us as service providers no less than any other volunteers or staff members. Each of us has abilities, gifts, disabilities, and limitations. The ethos of Food & Friends is that every one of us has a place at the table, literally and figuratively.
Food & Friend’s mission, unequivocally, is to provide medical nutrition to people who are critically ill, but another element of what we do is community building. Food & Friends is a vortex wherein you find people behaving at their best. We set an example for how to engage with individuals in need—it’s a kind of modeling in a time when communities feel more fractured than ever.
We model how people should behave as a community, because we are a community. We model how people can help themselves and help one another—and help themselves through helping one another. You see all of that when you meet the volunteers from St. John’s.
All of us at Food & Friends know that each of us has something to give. We have nearly ten thousand neighbors annually who come through our doors to volunteer. The trick is to find out what is each person’s gift. With the volunteers from St. Johns, you come to know them as individuals—you see what they like to do and you see what they don’t like to do, everybody isn’t the same. And as this relationship develops, they become part of the fabric of Food & Friends.
There is constancy to the work we do at Food & Friends. In some ways it’s very much the same as it was 28 years ago. The essence of that is neighborhood engagement and engagement of individuals over the long haul. St. Johns is an outstanding example of an organization that makes a sustained commitment to the community, as well as to its members.
Want to join our volunteer team? Learn more on our volunteer page or email us for more information!