Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
June 12, 2002
SHARE program is seeking volunteers
Affordable food project needs help to expand services
By Alwen Bledsoe
For 13 years SHARE Colorado has sought to provide affordable food and to build community. Now it's seeking more volunteers so it can expand those services.
A division of Catholic Charities, SHARE provides affordable groceries to its participants, asking only that recipients try to volunteer two hours a month in their communities, said Managing Director Dann Aungst.
The typical SHARE package is $20 for 20 food items and includes four to five meat products, about 10 fresh produce items, and other staple foods, a $35-$45 value according to Aungst. Now participants can also choose from a new Choice Program, offering individual items from canned fruit to T-bone steaks, and the Family Meal Plan, offering three family meals with main and side dishes for $18, he added.
And there are other ways the program would like to expand, Aungst added. Currently participants pick up groceries at one of SHARE's 270 host sites. The host sites — churches, senior centers, apartment complexes and other communities — pick up and distribute the SHARE food each month. But some host sites, especially those with senior citizens, are finding it difficult to manage each month's pick-ups, and SHARE would like to provide drivers to deliver to a communal distribution site, or even door-to-door, he added.
"I kind of look at it as `Meals on Wheels delivers hot food to people, why can't we deliver groceries?' We just need the delivery people. We definitely have people who want it," Aungst said.
SHARE is heavily reliant on volunteers for all of its operations from packaging in the warehouse to distribution at its host sites. Right now, though, the greatest need is in the front office and on the road.
"We are very weak in front office administration help," Aungst said. "We only have five people who volunteer in the front office and we could easily use 10-15."
And, though plenty of host sites pick up their own food, there is only one driver available to deliver to those in need, Aungst added.
"I'm sure we could find the distribution and participation if we had 50 drivers," he said.
SHARE would also like to double the 40-50 volunteers who currently work in the warehouse.
Though SHARE serves mostly low-income people, anyone can participate. In fact, the slogan was once, "If you eat you qualify," Aungst said with a laugh.
A common misconception, he added, is that those who can afford to shop elsewhere are taking away SHARE services from the more needy. Not so, he says. Along with the fresh produce and meat SHARE buys from its regular vendors, it also buys overstocked food, repackaged food and discontinued items at reduced prices, works almost entirely on volunteer services and only buys food participants have ordered in advance. All of that adds up to savings, and those savings, said Aungst, are passed on to participants.
"The whole thing is done in a community effort to save money," he explained. "We're not here to make a profit. We just need to cover the cost of our existence."
Currently SHARE supplies groceries to about 10,000 families per month in Colorado, South Dakota, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska, Aungst said. But the great majority —about two-thirds of their participants —are in Colorado.
"We could easily serve 50,000 or 100,000 families if they wanted," he added. "We'd only be limited by warehouse space. If we had that demand, we'd add on. There really is not a limit to the participation."
Though people leave with cheap groceries, stronger community ties are some of the most important things they gain, Aungst said, explaining that new friendships are forged as people volunteer for SHARE or pick up their food.
Bill Wolfe is the team leader of the SHARE program at Spirit of Christ, Arvada.
"The community building has been just phenomenal," he said. "You meet new people in the parish this way. It's really great."
Around 75 volunteers work with the 3-year-old Spirit of Christ program, and about 200 receive groceries, Wolfe estimated. Many, he added, buy groceries for other needy members in the community.
"Most of (the recipients) are really excited that we would do this," Wolfe said. "They just don't expect that people would reach out like this and help out like this."
According the Aungst, SHARE is planning to coordinate a similar program from its main headquarters, allowing participants to buy food or gift certificates for those in need — whether for individuals or for homeless shelters and food banks, Aungst said.
And how's the food? Though there were some problems in food quality in the past, SHARE seems to have moved beyond those struggles, according to Wolfe.
"Overall the food is really done well," Wolfe said.
And those who don't volunteer with SHARE are missing out, Wolfe added.
"Getting involved in parish work is so satisfying. They're really, I think, missing the boat," he said.
For more information or to volunteer, call Terri Williamson at 303-428-0400, option 0.
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