'Hope For A Community': Food Bank Of Eastern Oklahoma To Unveil New Volunteer Center

The Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma plans to hold an open house to officially unveil its new volunteer center on May 3. This comes as part of a larger expansion project for the food bank that took well over a year to complete.

Even though the food bank will be officially unveiling the new volunteer center on May 3, it has already started to make use of it.

The facility is a bigger space that allows for about double the number of volunteers the old volunteer center could accommodate. This means the food bank could see up to 100 volunteers working at any time.

Dwayne Sheridan, the community engagement and education manager for the food bank, said the increase in volunteers will save the organization with regards to operating costs as well as help get more food out to those who need it.

"For one, it allows us to be able to get more food out. So now, with our full expansion of our warehouse, we are expected to have the opportunity to double the amount of food that comes in. And so with that, we need to be able to process even more food. So, this will allow us to be able to do that," Sheridan said.

For those that have been able to see the new volunteer center and make use of it already, there is a lot of excitement for all the help it can provide.

"For those that have volunteered before, they come in and they’re just like 'Wow, I can’t wait to work in this space.' For those who’ve never been with us before, they are seeing how large the scope is of what we can actually do, and that provides a lot of hope for a community to know that hunger is a problem, but we can tackle it together," Sheridan said.