Neighborhood Coordinators needed

Aug. 8, 2022 — Florence Food Share is excited to announce the revival of its Green Bad Food Donation Program, an easy way to fight hunger in our community.

The way the program works is simple: Florence Food Share supplies reusable green grocery bags for people to fill with non-perishable staples over the course of two months when they do their own shopping. The bags are then picked up on a pre-scheduled date by a Neighborhood Coordinator who volunteers to deliver them to the Food Pantry.

Pick-ups are scheduled for the second Saturday of every even-numbered month: February, April, June, August, October and December.

The Green Bag Program — or Neighborhood Food Project — started many years ago in Ashland/Medford, Ore., and now functions throughout the Western states as well as other parts of the country. It has proven to be an easy and effective way to provide food pantries with a steady, year-round supply for those in need. Florence Food Share previously participated in the program but didn't have the personnel to keep it going.

A key element in the project is the Neighborhood Coordinator (NC), a person who volunteers to invite their neighbors to participate as Food Donors. NCs canvas their neighborhoods to see who would like to participate and hand out the empty bags along with a calendar of the pick-up schedule — both of which are provided by Food Share.

The NC then retrieves the full bags on the pick-up date, leaving an empty bag for the next time, and delivers the full bags to Florence Food Share.

One participant who has seen a lot of success as a Neighborhood Coordinator is Deborah Lipman, a new resident of Florence.

"I contributed to the Green Bag program when I lived in Douglas County and was impressed with how easy and productive it is,” she said. “When I moved here, I contacted Food Share and asked if I could use their supply of Green Bags to solicit contributions from my neighbors. I am now the NC for 15 participants on my street who are remarkably generous, contributing a combined average of 250-300 pounds of food to the pantry every other month for a total of about 3,000 pounds per year!"

If you'd like to be a Neighborhood Coordinator, contact Florence Food Share at 541-997-9110 or stop by the pantry at 2190 Spruce Street.

For more information, visit www.florencefoodshare.org.