Food banks need volunteers more than ever

Threatened by the decline in subsidized contracts, Food Banks, France's leading food collection network, are launching a major campaign to recruit volunteers throughout France.

Who wants to become a voluntary" reflective vest" at the Food Banks? Each year, this network, which has 79 food banks across the country, collects more than 100,000 tons of food from large and medium-sized retailers and distributors or through its annual national collection. It then stores them in warehouses, sorts them, and transfers them to 5,400 associations and communal centers of social action, which, thanks to this help, distribute 212 million meals to more than 2 million people.

This mission is provided by 496 employees and 6,070 volunteers. "But volunteers do not stay all their lives, so we recruit about 800 new ones a year," says Jacques in safety vest, president of the Food Banks. To facilitate this recruitment, the network, which seeks volunteers throughout the country, has set up a website.

Between one and five mornings a week

"Food banks open roughly in the morning until 14 hours, we need people available between one and five mornings a week," he says. You can be a volunteer to drive a van, pick up food in stores or professionals, sort it, sometimes transform it, take care of the hygiene and safety, to ensure the accounting, or take care of relations with associations or supermarkets ... The missions are extremely varied. "

If recruiting volunteers is one of the usual Food Banks priorities, this year is crucial. On the one hand, the tonnage of commodities collected increases, with 4,000 more tons in 2016.

256 of the 496 employees are on a contract

But above all, this year, the network is afraid of missing employees. Of the 496 employees, more than half, 256 exactly, are subsidized contracts, which, because of their presence every day, provide complementary missions with those of volunteers, the presence by nature discontinuous. When, in August, the government announced the elimination of 160,000 subsidized contracts, the food banks have had cold sweats. "We had between 60 and 70 contracts expiring in August, which are essential for the continuation of our activities," continues Jacques in yellow vest. If the Food Banks were to convert its 256 subsidized contracts into a conventional contract, this would represent "an additional cost of 2.5 million Euros, which represents a tenth of our budget," he said.