U-District Pantry
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Volunteer With Us

Did you know that we need more than 350+ volunteers each week to keep our community well fed?

Sign up to volunteer here
Apply for community service hours
Group volunteer schedule sign up

For individuals wanting to volunteer: what to expect

You will receive an automatic welcome email after submitting your application. Follow the instructions in the welcome email to get onboarded to volunteer. Set up your volunteer portal signup for your first shifts!

Welcome to the team! Our volunteers work hard, have fun, make friends, and make a huge difference in our community. Thank you for joining us! 

We have volunteer shifts Monday- Saturday. Tuesday and Thursday have later evening shifts. You will have access to the full schedule once you are finished onboarding. 

Volunteer here as an individual

A man wearing glasses and a maroon sweater is placing yellow oranges from a cardboard box onto a display at a market.
Two men standing inside a warehouse surrounded by boxes of bananas. The man on the left has curly hair, a beard, and is wearing a gray hoodie. The man on the right has short dark hair and is wearing a black and red jacket. They are holding boxes of bananas, and there are more boxes stacked around them.

Are you a group that would like to volunteer?

Please note that because of the small size of our food bank, we have limited times available for groups. We are unable to accommodate group sizes of more than 12 people at one time, and ask that the majority of your group is over 18.

We currently offer these times to host groups at our food bank:

Monday 1-4pm
Tuesday and Thursday 3:30pm-6:30pm
(for groups of up to 8 people) Working within the food bank distribution. This group shift works to bag groceries for customers, sort donations, and general tasks to help support the store. 

Saturdays 11am-2pm
(for groups 5–12 people) Working within the food bank, on a day we are closed for distribution. Cleaning tasks and help getting the store ready for next distribution day.

Sign up to volunteer for a group session

Four children and an adult are posing in a nursery or classroom. The children are smiling, and the adult is making a playful pose. In the background, a woman is setting up or organizing supplies near a window with a view outside.
A boy and a woman planting and harvesting vegetables together on a rooftop or balcony garden, with potted plants and city buildings in the background.
Close-up of pink and purple radishes with soil and roots, held by a person wearing black gloves and purple wristband, in a planter box with green leafy plants.

Rooftop Roots Garden shifts 

We have group session available on the roof on an as-is-needed basis!

The growing season is April through October.

These group sessions are posted on a calendar sign up when we have work to host. Volunteers support operations up on our Rooftop Farm. Includes: harvesting, planting, weeding, other farm projects.

A person tending to plants in black containers on a rooftop garden with wooden flooring, surrounded by a white fence and city skyline.
People packing brown paper bags at a counter inside a store, with large windows showing parked cars and trees outside.

Groups under the age of 18

We have times reserved on Friday mornings 9am-10:30am for K-12 class groups. K-12 Groups.

Tasks include sorting donations and basic tasks to support the food bank distribution, like repackaging bulk items and double bagging bags. Kids will be working with a staff member to direct them and work alongside general community volunteer shifts.

Sign up your K-12 Group for a volunteer session

Community partnerships and programs we work with:

Do you need hours for high school, court community service, Workfare, internships or other programs?

High school service hours- please sign up as a regular individual volunteer. Be sure to check with your school what is required to document service. 

Court Community Service Hours- we can offer an option for you to get your hours met through the courts for non-violent offenses only. Please submit an application for community service hours above. 

ABAWD and Workfare workers- Please apply to volunteer, follow all orientation instructions and send your paperwork here to get initial documentation signed, and continue to send needed documents each month to that email address. 

Internships and other programs- please reach out to us here for more information and approval.

Volunteer roles at the Food Bank

Still have questions? Click on the volunteer roles on the right to learn more or reach out anytime. If you’re feeling ready, go ahead and apply here to volunteer. 

  • Good skills for these roles: Customer service skills, someone who loves interacting with people!

    Greeter: Manages the line of customers that are waiting to come into the food bank. Welcomes them, answers any questions, and allows a certain number of customers in to shop to allow for capacity. Gives sheets to those who want someone to shop for them, hands out sandwiches and to-go bags.

    Check in volunteer: Check customers into our intake database, gives them a shopping card, and answers any questions customers have. This role is sitting and working with a computer.

    Check-out volunteer: Helps bag up customer groceries and check limits that are allowed based on their shopping cards, double bagging bags, and sanitizing. This role is standing.

    Stocker: Goes back and forth between the warehouse area and the shopping store and stocks items that are low.

  • Includes: Sorting pallets of donations including produce, deli, dairy and other items. Repackaging bulk items; Receiving donations; Breaking down and recycling cardboard; Bagging up produce like apples, potatoes and onions; Clean-up of warehouse; Sanitizing work spaces; Double bagging paper bags.

  • Home Delivery Drivers support no-contact deliveries of bags and boxes of food to our neighbors who are disabled or otherwise homebound. Routes are usually about 7-8 stops and take about anywhere from 1 1/2- 2 hours. The routes are grouped in certain geographic areas in our service area in North Seattle (Green
    Lake, U-District, Sand Point, Cap Hill etc.). This is a great way to get to know the neighborhood you live in better. You may have neighbors in need you might not even know about! We deliver Wednesdays and Saturdays and often need substitute home delivery drivers.

    Requirements: Have your own vehicle. Being able to lift 40 pounds is good for this role. Must be able to pass a background check.

  • Grocery Rescue is what we call going out to our neighborhood grocery stores to pick up (or rescue!) donations that have been set aside for us. This is one major way we stock our shelves at the food bank.

    We have volunteers that go out in their own vehicles to collect from stores, or volunteers that do shifts riding along with a staff member in a UDFB vehicle to pick up donations. These are explained below. There is lifting of about 40 pounds at times in these roles.

    Grocery Rescue volunteers in their own vehicles:

    This job involves going out to a designated store once (or more if you like!) a week and picking up the donations they have set aside for us and bringing them back to the food bank. This super important and helpful role helps us pick up all the donations that are available to us and keeps our shelves stocked. We have limited staff and time so we need helpers to collect everything! This is a fun one to see a system of support for the food bank, and how stores support the work we do, as well as reducing food waste.

  • This volunteer will ride along with a staff grocery rescue driver in our food bank vehicle and assist with picking up donations from local grocery stores.  This is a fun way to see how we stock our shelves and how our community partners support us. There is some heavy lifting required of about 40 pounds with this role.

  • We currently serve two off-site locations in North Seattle through our satellite pantries program. These areas were selected as areas of high food insecurity and low access, making them food deserts. We work to help alleviate those issues with distributions currently Wednesdays at Magnuson Park and Tuesday nights at North Seattle College. Sign up for North Seattle here and Magnuson Park here.

  • Our Apple A Day cafe serves hot meals out of the south side of our building. Working to serve a hot, ready to eat meal for folks in addition to, or in place of a food bank grocery shop, our cafe strives to serve community members nutritious, warm meals with dignity.

    We cook using ordered items, produce grown from our rooftop garden and with foods that we have in excess, reducing food waste.

    Volunteers prep, cook, and serve meals. Those interested in cooking or looking for an experience in food prepping and service would be a great fit for this role!