Bread of the Mighty Food Bank (BOTM)-a branch of Feeding Northeast Florida-has been a community staple for over 3 decades, providing +57,000 local family members experiencing food insecurity with reliable, nutritious food. BOTM collects, sorts, stores, and distributes food and basic essentials to over 200 nonprofit agency partners with pantries and feeding programs. Our dedicated team travels five days a week to collect donations from generous retailers and wholesalers. Our service area supports families throughout Alachua, Gilchrist, Levy, and Union counties-as part of the twelve-county reach of Feeding Northeast Florida.

To sort, inspect, and prepare items for redistribution, we depend on the generous time gifted by thousands of volunteers every year. When students, families, and team members from local businesses come together through volunteerism, we are able to spread awareness about local hunger as well as move nearly 7 million pounds of charitable food out of BOTM and to community hands quickly to be enjoyed vs. languishing in a landfill.

The food bank is overdue for renovations, including an expansion to the volunteer working space. Although construction is in process now, we seek partnership with The AWESOME Foundation to support a hydration station. A water bottle refill station would ensure clean (contactless) access to water for volunteers that breaks the reliance on plastic bottles, promoting sustainable practices. According to The Urban Institute, there are numerous critical aspects of volunteer retention, including allocating sufficient resources to the volunteer experience. A pleasing environment with adequate resources fosters a sense of community and engagement where volunteers can connect, collaborate, and share their experiences. This promotes volunteer retention and satisfaction, as well as encourages long-term commitment and ongoing support-essential to our food bank’s plan to double our food output in 2024 to nearly 16 million pounds.