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CCFB will be closed Friday, March 29, 2024 for Good Friday.

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A Note about Volunteering during COVID-19

Updated March 18, 2020 

To our most valued partners – our volunteers:

The Chester County Food Bank, with critical guidance from our health and public safety partners, has made the very difficult decision to stop all volunteer activities through the end of March. We will reassess this decision at the end of the month.

Please monitor our website and social media accounts for changes. As we learn more about the spread of COVID-19 in our area, seemingly by the hour, we, too, are adjusting and adapting. This is new territory for us all, but we feel grateful to be in it together.

In emergency situations, like the COVID-19 pandemic, the Food Bank is considered an essential service and our staff considered essential personnel. It is a badge that we wear with pride and honor. In many ways, launching into an emergency response mode is what we’re trained for. We are here to serve Chester County for as long as we are able to safely do so.

Therefore, we are choosing to drastically limit the number of non-staff who enter our facility and interact with our staff. The most impactful way that we can do this is to limit volunteering. Please know that we have already taken precautionary steps to have certain staff work remotely, on a roughly 14-day cycle, so that we have folks to keep things going should any of us not be able to report to work. We are all taking care to follow the recommended social distancing and other precautionary measures, and we continue to coordinate with our partners like the Chester County Health Department and Emergency Management Division. We are making every effort to stay well-informed with the most up-to-date information.

Please have faith that decisions regarding our operations are made carefully with input from the experts available, and with staff and leadership consensus. We know that most of our volunteers are healthy, and that there are many more folks now at home looking to give their time in a meaningful way, however we feel that is the right call for the health and safety of our community at-large.

We look forward to continually reassessing the situation. We hope that by abiding by a 14-day cyclical approach to things that we will be able to limit COVID-19 exposure and spread, that we’ll provide at least some consistency in terms of our volunteer program status, and that our staff will be more available to focus on what’s most important right now – getting food out to those who need it.

We’d like to remind you that there are many other ways to support the Food Bank beyond hands-on volunteering with us. Please consider collecting food donations (see a list of most-needed items here) or becoming a Beyond Hunger 365 sustaining donor.

Our staff continues to be amazed by the outpouring of support. Please know that as our volunteers you are part of this family, and although we’re operating under new and strange conditions, we appreciate you and we can’t wait to work side-by-side with you again.

We appreciate your support of the Chester County Food Bank, especially during this time of uncertainty and of greater need. We know that the new procedures outlined above will impact many of you – these are not easy decisions to make, and please know that we’re being guided by advice from the experts and by a desire to protect the health and safety of those in our community to the best of our ability.

Your partnership is valued year-round – this is simply a bump in the road. For those who are unable to join us over these next weeks, we will be overjoyed to work with you again when social distancing recommendations are lifted.

If you have any questions about our volunteer program, please connect with Lauren Van Dyk our Volunteer Coordinator at volunteer@chestercountyfoodbank.org or at 610-873-6000 x122.

Together, we will persevere.

 

Important Resources for COVID-19

Please check these resources frequently to ensure that you’re aware of the most up-to-date information available regarding COVID-19 in our area.