Volunteering with Friends at Food & Friends

One of the many awesome benefits of working at Viget is the two paid community service days we get each year. The challenge is finding the right time and opportunity to use these community service days -- volunteer opportunities that have flexible schedules during the workweek are hard to come by. That’s why when Lance suggested that we get a small Viget group together to volunteer, I excitedly joined in on the opportunity.

We chose to volunteer with Food & Friends in northeast DC. Food & Friends prepares and delivers specialized fresh and frozen meals and groceries to men, women, and children living with HIV/AIDs, cancer, and other life-challenging illnesses in the metro DC area. 

Food & Friends works with professional nutritionists, chefs, and a slew of volunteers to prepare, portion, pack, and deliver an average of 3,500 meals a day! It’s no question that Food & Friends relies heavily on volunteer support, so this was a great organization for our group of seven to help out.

We grabbed lunch together and arrived well-fed and ready to volunteer. After a brief introduction, we put on our hair nets and got right into the mix of things. We headed back to the kitchen where we packed frozen meals, portioned out food into containers, and labeled and bagged groceries. Before we knew it, it was time to leave.

Volunteering as a small group was a welcomed change of atmosphere and an excellent bonding and team-building activity. We quickly found ourselves trying to improve our efficiency and reduce errors on each task. Breaking up into two teams for some activities also created a fun challenge. At Viget, we’re planning to form more small groups and make volunteering at Food & Friends a recurring event. Maybe next time we’ll get a chance to show off our julienning skills!

If you’re interested in volunteering at Food & Friends, you can email volunteer@foodandfriends.org or call (202) 269-2277.  They are always looking for people to help prepare and deliver meals.