for ADULTS

There are as many ways to contribute to our work as there are volunteers. This list provides an overview of the areas where we can use the most help. After you review it, complete the attached Adult Volunteer Application and email it to our Volunteer Coordinator at volunteer@ceresproject.org. She’ll contact you to explore the best way for you to help.

Delivery

Delivering the nutritious, bountiful food to our clients every week is a priceless job, one in which you experience face-to-face the magic of The Ceres Community Project. We deliver to 35 to 45 families each week, from East Santa Rosa to Occidental and Healdsburg to Petaluma.

Each Thursday around 5:00 p.m. drivers pick up bags filled with nearly a week’s worth of food, deliver to our clients, pick up last week’s clean, empty containers, and then drop off the empty containers at the kitchen by the following Monday evening. Depending on where you are delivering, this might take 45 minutes to 2 hours. You can deliver weekly, every other week, once a month, or fill in when needed.

Event Support

The Ceres Community Project sponsors the Food as Medicine Lecture Series every other month, has a booth at the Sebastopol Farmers Market twice a month, and tables at many other events during the year. We are always in need of people who are available to assist at these events with set up and breakdown, selling our food and other products, and talking with folks at the events about Ceres’ work. If you love interacting with people, this might be the right job for you

Harvesting/Food pick-ups/Gleaning/Canning

The Ceres Community Project is committed to using as much local organic produce as possible. We are partnering with a number of local farms as well as local stores who donate fresh produce to us. Not only does this ensure the freshest organic food for our clients, it also saves us tens of thousand of dollars in costs.

Sometimes we need help harvesting veggies at local farms and also picking up produce from stores. In the late summer/early fall we often receive calls to come and glean fruits and veggies from local orchards and gardens. This is a fun, satisfying way to contribute to more of our food being used well. If you are knowledgeable about canning, we’d love to have you help us preserve some of this bounty to use during the winter months and to sell at the farmers market.

Are You a Chef?

If you have professional, whole foods, production-cooking experience, we’d love to talk with you about joining us in the kitchen. You must love working with young people, have a sense of humor, and know that there are many different ways to chop an onion! We generally have two or three adult chefs in the kitchen during each shift and are working to put together a team of people who can share this responsibility.

Chefs supervise, mentor and teach, supporting our teens in developing skills, competence and confidence in the kitchen. If we’re short-handed, they also wash dishes, chop onions or whatever else is needed to have the kitchen run smoothly.

Client Relations Liaison

If you have counseling or hospice training, or have personal, immediate experience with life threatening illness, being a Client Relations Liaison is a wonderful way to contribute. The Client Relations volunteer holds a small number of clients, ensuring that they are receiving as much benefit as possible from their time with us. You meet in person with a new client and then maintain regular contact with them to offer support, ensure that the food we are sending is maximally supportive of their healing, and communicate their needs to the kitchen staff.

Extraneous but Essential Opportunities

Like any non-profit, there are many behind the scenes jobs to keep a project like The Ceres Community Project going. Whatever your skill, we can probably use it. For a very beginning list we need volunteers who can help in these ways: office assistance for mailings and other projects, event coordination, grant writing, public relations and outreach, fund-raising, budgeting and financial management, gardening assistance . . .

If you are interested in volunteering,
please contact our
Volunteer Coordinator Margaret Howe
with your interests at
volunteer@ceresproject.org
or by calling
707·829·5833 extension 2.

Volunteer Orientation Evenings
Ceres Community Project Kitchen
330 S. Main Street, Sebastopol

Tuesdays, 5:30 – 6:30

January 19
February 16
March 16
April 20
May 18
June 15
July 20
August 17
September 21
October 19
November 16
December 14

This is an opportunity to understand the big picture of the Ceres Community Project, learn more about the food we prepare and who we serve, meet staff and other volunteers, ask questions and have a taste of a delicacy that our chefs prepare! All teen and adult volunteers are invited and encouraged to attend.