'Meals From The Market' Volunteer Event
Do you love going to the Des Moines Downtown Farmers’ Market?
Are you interested in helping others through volunteering?
Young Professionals Connection is getting a small group together to do BOTH!
We will be volunteering for the Meals From The Market program, which is run by DMARC Food Pantry Network. The Meals From The Market program, which began in 2009, aims to provide fresh, local produce to food pantries in the Greater Des Moines region. Since 2014, Meals From The Market has contributed more than 255,000 pounds of fresh local food to people experiencing hunger and food insecurity in the Greater Des Moines area.
DMARC works to ensure 14 local food pantries are stocked, as well as two mobile pantries that drive to 19 different ‘food deserts’ which are places without pantries but have a huge need. DMARC serves 56,000 unique individuals each year, and ⅓ of those are children.
So what exactly will we be doing?
At 10:45AM we will meet at the Riverwalk Hub and walk over to the Meals From The Market tent together (which is a big tent located at the corner of Court Avenue and Third Street) where we will have orientation and be given instructions. From approximately 11:30AM-12:30PM we will be canvassing Farmers’ Market asking vendors if they would like to donate any unsold produce, baked goods, or nonperishable food items to the program. At about 12:30PM, volunteers will collect and load donated items into a truck, which will be distributed throughout the DMARC Food Pantry Network.
We are only allowing a maximum of 10 volunteers, so you must register in advance.
Masks are required and hand sanitizer is available at the Meals From The Market tent.