Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma

What an amazing place! I had the privilege of taking a tour and spending time helping sort and package food. They are highly organized, focused and passionate about serving not only the local community but also neighboring food banks. I would highly encourage people to donate food items when possible but volunteering your time would be just as helpful!

The cause’s importance goes without mention. Come on folks.
They make it so easy to volunteer and is super family friendly.
You enter and are greeted by coordinators then you go upstairs to sign in and are briefed on the tasks and are grouped depending on amount of volunteers. There are up to three different packing and sorting stations going at once. After you’re done then there’s cleanup and a dismissal.

What a great place to volunteer in your community! They work like a well oiled machine and make volunteering fun at the same time. Shifts are three hours in the morning or afternoon doing a variety of tasks. They can accommodate pretty much anyone, so sign up and spend some time making your community better!

Helping to pack up almost 4,000 pounds of frozen zucchini was so much FUN! Volunteering at the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma is easy, runs like a well oiled machine and did I say FUN? Each year volunteers have helped them save in excess of $ 3 million in labor costs! If you are looking for an easy worthwhile way to volunteer, grab a few friends, sign up ahead of time at their site and help feed the hungry in Oklahoma. The statistics are staggering but you will make a difference!

I have volunteered at this Food Bank twice, both times I had a lot of fun. The work can be tiring so wear comfortable clothes and be prepared to work. They have a very nice and helpful staff that helps you learn what is needs to be accomplish. In addition they give you information about the organization and is doing great things for the people of Oklahoma City. I really enjoy when they tell you what was accomplished at the end of the shift, such as you box x number of pounds of food and you were able to feed x amount of people. I would recommend anyone and everyone to volunteer at this place.

I volunteered here for my first time last night with a group of Unilocalers and we had a great time! This place really knows how to coordinate and get the most work done with the people they have and the time allotted. I would definitely recommend choosing the Food Bank if you haven’t volunteered in a while or if you just are getting started because they make it very easy for you to get involved! They recently transitioned into a online sign-​up system so it will be even easier to know when and how to volunteer with this organization that does so much good for Oklahomans in need.

So one of the major problems with volunteering is if an organization relies on volunteers, you can’t necessarily enforce the standards and organization that ensure your volunteered time will be put to good use. We’ve all volunteered our time at places before, only to realize at the end of our shift that the only living things we’ve actually helped were the plants that benefited from the carbon dioxide we exhaled over them as we hung around in frustration.
I’m happy to report I had the exact opposite experience here! At the Regional Food Bank, we were slotted into a well-​oiled (and clean!) machine and were able to accomplish a lot in time that simply flew by. The staff worked out a good plan for us, they have an online signup and check-​in system that will be fantastic once the kinks are worked out, and we were able to have fun while filling boxes like crazy people. This is my kind of helping!
Having been put to good use at the Food Bank, and having fun, I feel like Gob as he experiences friendship for the first time … this altruism thing isn’t half bad.

A bit of benevolence is good from time to time and the feeling of goodness you receive after volunteering at the Regional Food Bank is unlike any other. There is really nothing else that can make you feel THAT good inside because helping people in need is really what it’s all about. All the volunteers that have ever been to the food bank know what I’m talking about.
I came with a few other Unilocalers from 6−9pm on a Thursday night. They had a DJ and played hip-​hop all night. We were able to package over 5,000 pounds worth of donations for children who do not have enough food on the weekends or over holidays. It might be hard to imagine that you would have fun working your ass off at the food bank on a Thursday night after a long day of work, but fun is exactly what we had. I am hoping to make a habit out of this and I want to try to volunteer at least 2 nights a month now. 96% of all monetary donations to RFBO go directly toward feeding the hungry since they have less than 100 employees and volunteers make this possible.
It is really hard to explain the feeling you will receive after volunteering here. You have to find out for yourself.

A few super cool Unilocalers came out last night to volunteer @rfbo, and I think we would all agree it was a wonderful experience. Thursday nights are Rock-​N-​Box, where volunteers sort, organize and package food items ready to go to Oklahoma’s hungry. I’m not joking when I say it was one of the most fun things I’ve done in a long time, with the added benefit of making you feel good. They had two DJs spinning some killer hip hop, and everyone knew the words and was kind of singing or dancing along. We were able to visit with each other and be a little silly, and the three hours flew by. One of the guys who works there even did some freestyling. He was good and it just made it even more fun and unique. I didn’t know the Knights of Columbus guys knew the words to old school rap but it appears some of them do! There were lots of groups there but individuals can also volunteer.
The facility itself is beautiful and spotless. The ground floor level is where the sorting happens, and upstairs is a volunteer break room where you gather before the evening starts and during a mid-​evening break. It was wonderful see how every dollar donated is utilized to fight hunger. We were putting together the bags for the kid’s backpack program, which helps keep kids from going hungry over the weekend. We were doing elementary school kids backpacks, which contain only items that require no cooking, such as cereal, fruit cups, milk and juice boxes, pretzels, etc. Sometimes this food may be most or all of what some kids have to eat all weekend.
Putting everything together is a well-​oiled machine: an assembly line set-​up gets the bags put together, and someone weighs each bag to make sure all bags are exactly the same. I like this because I imagine that a hungry kid probably always (understandably) feels like they’ve been shortchanged. Double checking to make sure they’re all the same seems more important in this situation. I was helping to seal the bags before they got boxed up. They then also weighed the boxes to be absolutely certain all the backpacks would be refilled. It seems nothing slips past their system and they do a good job of keeping the night on track while being friendly and fun to volunteers.
You just kinda wanted to bless each bag, send a little love as you seal it up, and hope that the kid who gets it has a little bit better of a weekend. All the while, singing along to Beastie Boys — an enthusiastic five stars.

This is a really nice facility with lots of room to hold all the donated foods. The employees are very organized when it comes to assigning each volunteer a task. On Thursday nights, there is a DJ that blasts requested music. It is a lot of fun sorting out thousands of boxes of foods and dancing to music! There are plenty of parking spaces in front of the building and lockers with electronic locks for volunteers to store their belongings. The bathrooms are also very nice. There are about 16 stalls with electronic flushers, sinks, and hand dryers.
I would recommend wearing athletic clothing for easy movements because you’ll be bending, walking, and standing a lot. You can’t wear open-​toes shoes or you can’t work in the main area for safety reasons. There are different events going on throughout the month to make volunteering fun. Come check it out!