Through the Eyes of a Volunteer: Adam’s Story

When the pandemic first began, life started to look extremely different as work and school transitioned from in-person to remote, stores that were deemed non-essential shuttered their doors for what we thought would just be a few weeks, and homemade facemasks became the new fashion. While folks were worried about a pandemic, others were also wondering how they would feed their families as access to school meals were threatened, and closed businesses meant money was tighter. At Beacon Hill International School, Adam, President of the school’s PTA, noted that the PTA went to work reworking their food assistance system so families could pick up groceries during the closure. 

“We were having food delivered up to the school building by the food bank, and then we would pack bags there and have kids or families come to pick up.” At one point, Adam shared that the PTA shifted to packing bags out of the food bank’s old location to ease their flow.  

“At this point, I know almost everyone's name,” Adam noted – he’s spent nearly every Wednesday for the past two years at the food bank, helping to pack grocery bags for his school’s Backpack Program. He affectionately remembers sharing space with Lil Red’s BBQ, packing bags in a cramped store room. His team of volunteers followed RVFB through the transition to our new facility. “It’s much larger,” he said of the new space. “The ability for people to pull up and load their bags without dealing with Rainier is nice.”

As a stay-at-home dad, Adam has made community service a priority.  “It's hard to explain because it seems so obvious. To me just that it's important to help out the community, right? With people you don't know, it's very difficult to see somebody in need and be like, ‘hey, I could help you,’ because you can’t always. You don’t know what they need, and they don’t know you. With the food bank or other social programs, it’s simple, we’re here, we provide food, come and get it or, or we’ll deliver it to you.” Adam says, “it’s just something to help make life more livable, and that makes life better for everyone in my estimation.”