For nearly 20 years, the Harvest Project has been offering food, clothing, and counselling for North Shore residents.
"We are pretty much a volunteer-driven organization," says Kevin Lee, development officer with Harvest Project.
"There's a staff of five in total: three full-time and two part-time and at any given time about 150 volunteers."
The volunteers work in shifts throughout the week, cumulatively contributing thousands of hours of raising funds, marketing the organization, driving trucks, and operating the till and stocking shelves in the Harvest Project's thrift store.
"When you look at who is needing to avail themselves of our offerings right now it's largely single parents . . . another 40 per cent are new residents, be they immigrants or other folks coming from across the country who wind up here and they're engaged in the community and yet they're finding it's a bit of a rugged environment," Lee said.
"The volunteer element is absolutely crucial to what we do."
Volunteers at Clothes for Change Boutique, located on Roosevelt Crescent in North Vancouver, provide clients with three outfits for each season.
Volunteers outfitted more than 750 clients with clothes last year, according to representatives from Harvest Project. Generally, Harvest Project requests volunteers commit to fours a week, hopefully staying on for six months or longer.
"We've got a really broad range of skills and age groups and ethnic groups, it's a good mirror of the North Shore," Lee said of the volunteers.
Programs like the Harvest Project are crucial in an era of diminishing government programs, according to Lee.
"Need, and dare we say it, poverty, on the North Shore is somewhat hidden, it doesn't look like it looks on the Downtown Eastside, mercifully enough, and yet it's real and it's extremely pressing on thousands of people across North and West Vancouver."
For more information go to harvestproject.org.
In addition to providing counselling for children of divorce, kids being bullied, and teens with eating disorders, Family Services of the North Shore also offers Christmas hampers for many families in need.
The organization is scheduled to run a toy shop on West First Street from Dec. 3 to 8, allowing families who have applied for Christmas hampers to choose presents for their children.
Because 20 families are expected to bustle through the shop's doors every hour, personal shoppers are required to help keep each shopping trip brisk and efficient.
Each volunteer must be at least 16. The hamper exchange is set for Dec. 12, 13, and 14, but instead of the Lucas Centre, the site of this year's exchange is a warehouse on Welch Street.
Janet Sanderson, Christmas bureau manager with Family Services, said they'll need volunteers to set up tables and chairs, and to decorate.
"We just came back from working at the warehouse and we're going to need more people," she said. "I think this year we've got our work cut out for us not being at the Lucas Centre."
About 150 volunteers including drivers, labourers, and organizers are all required to make the season go smoothly for Family Services, according to Sanderson.
"We need people that can kind of take the bull by the horns," Sanderson said.
This is also the first year Family Services has undertaken computerized communication, Sanderson said.
"We only have two computers and it's going a little slow, so we do need people with computer experience," she added.
Interested volunteers can email Family Services at [email protected].
HELPING HAND VolunteerJudy Cowe stacks cans of food in the grocery area at the Harvest Project.
