We simply could not do what we do without the help of volunteers! Whether you can volunteer once a week, once a month or once a year; individually or with a group of friends, family or colleagues, whatever your commitment, every hour of assistance helps us ensure our hungry neighbors will have access to food in their time of need.
Thanks to our volunteers, Northern Illinois Food Bank serves more than half a million hungry neighbors each year across 13 counties. Last year, volunteers donated 136,000 hours of their time to help distribute the equivalent of 80.3 million meals to families, seniors, and kids facing hunger in our community. What you do matters!
COVID-19 Update (as of December 2021): Northern Illinois Food Bank continues to accept and rely on volunteers at our Centers and food distributions. The Food Bank will continue to operate as we have been during the pandemic with safety measures in place in terms of social distancing, hand washing and mask requirements. We continue to monitor CDC guidelines regularly to ensure we are following the very latest COVID prevention recommendations and safety protocols, and will update any internal Food Bank policies as needed. Please find more information on our current guidelines on our Coronavirus (COVID-19) landing page here.
Click on an image below to learn more about our volunteer opportunities.
Inspect, sort, and package food that will be distributed to our hungry neighbors.
Groups of 25+ must call to register.
Ages 8+ are welcome.
Serve our neighbors directly at the Winnebago Community Market, My Pantry Express, and Mobile Pantries.
Ages 12+ are welcome.
Put your unique professional and general life skills to use and help us solve hunger! We have a variety of projects available.
Assist in planning fundraising events, soliciting sponsorship or auction items, and providing day-of logistic support.
Don’t see what you’re looking for?
Contact the volunteer team with your questions about volunteering with Northern Illinois Food Bank.
