VOLUNTEER
Dalhousie Food Cupboard is a great way to connect with your community!
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Board Members
Dalhousie Food Cupboard is looking for Board members with experience in Fundraising. If you are interested in joining our small, dedicated team, please forward your resume to: mail@dalhousiefoodcupboard.ca Volunteers Dalhousie is currently looking for energetic volunteers with the following skills and experience:
From time to time, we recruit assistants for our day-to-day operations and special events:
Organize an event to support Dalhousie Food Cupboard: Are you looking for a way to connect your organization to the community? Funds raised from third-party events help support our mission to provide healthy food to people who need it in our community. 
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Meet Our Volunteers!
The Dalhousie Food Cupboard and its clients depend on the incredible work of our dedicated volunteer core. Each volunteer has their own story - this month, meet Sabina Haque! My name is Sabina Haque. I am a 19 year old Criminology student at Carleton University in Ottawa. I began volunteering at the Dalhousie Food Cupboard in January 2016 during my first year of university studies. As a child, my mother and I would visit a food bank in my neighbourhood every so often to access food and clothing for my family. Now, as my family is more well-established, I wanted to give back to the establishments that helped me as I was growing up. For this reason, I chose to look into food banks that offered volunteering opportunities. At the food bank, I often greet the clients who are coming in and register them in for their monthly visit. If the client is new, I help set up a file for them and explain the DFC process.
From the DFC I have learned to practice more empathy. The DFC has also further consolidated my understanding of the difficulties many people have when trying to support themselves and/or their families. It reminds me not to take anything for granted and be thankful for what I have. Volunteering does have its challenges. For example, to access the DFC, clients must bring an ID with every visit for verification. Every few months they must also bring a proof of address (POA) to verify they are still in our catchment area. Sometimes, clients will forget to bring their ID/POA and become upset when we must turn them away. We often give out grace periods (i.e. we serve them and just remind them to make sure they bring it for their next visit or else no service). However, every once in awhile, a client will repeatedly not bring in their ID or proof of address. This puts the volunteers at DFC in a difficult position because as much as we would like to give out as much food as we can to our hungry clients, we have a policy that we must uphold in order to run our operations smoothly and consistently. There are times when clients express their frustration and it is always challenging to explain the reasons we cannot serve them. De-escalating these situations involves the practice of empathy, showing understanding and compassion so the clients know we are not being insensitive to their circumstances. The thing I have enjoyed the most about volunteering at the DFC is working with a lovely group of like-minded individuals. Everyone who works at the DFC comes in on their own time, unpaid, and out of the goodness of their hearts. The whole team is very friendly and welcoming. A new volunteer can look forward to gaining a feeling of a genuine camaraderie from the Dalhousie Food Cupboard's family-like team. |
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If you are interested in volunteering with the Dalhousie Food Cupboard, please fill in this contact form . . . . . >
or email mail@dalhousiefoodcupboard.ca or call (613) 230-3982 
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