Minutes before the doors opened, 15 volunteers, including myself, joined hands in a circle. One by one, each of the volunteers introduced themselves and the group shared a prayer for the well-being of the clientele and for everything to run smoothly for the day.

This was the start of another Wednesday at the Snoqualmie Valley Food Bank.

The food bank, located next to the church on East 3rd Street and Ballarat in North Bend, has been a staple of the Valley community for over a decade. Two years ago, when the Mount Si Food Bank left that location, it became the Snoqualmie Valley Food Bank. Now after a couple years, the food bank has been built back up to help support those who need it.

Executive Director Heidi Dukich told me that the strength of the food bank comes from the amount of passionate volunteers they get. In 2015, she said the food bank has already exceeded 15,000 volunteer work hours, and regularly gives out 13,000 to 15,000 pounds of food a week.

“There are a lot of giving hearts in our community and it’s really what makes us able to provide the service that we do,” Dukich said.

Dukich and Operations Manager Lori Bailey, the only two employees of the food bank, made sure the volunteers were up to date with the day’s workload before getting everyone to join hands for a prayer lead by Karen Birzell, a volunteer and member of the food bank’s board of directors.

Each volunteer took a position along the aisles of the food bank. Some were in charge of fruits and vegetables, while others looked over canned and boxed foods.

I worked the desserts, making sure the tables were stocked up with pies, muffins, cookies, cinnamon rolls. It was Thanksgiving preparation day so the food bank had stocked up on frozen turkeys to give out to the clients. There were boxes full of canned cranberries, pumpkin, and other non-perishable food items that would be useful for baking and preparing a Thanksgiving meal.

Once the doors were opened, the flow of people remained constant for hours. Young and old, men and women, individuals, couples, families, the food bank served all types of people in the community.

The biggest thing I noticed was the atmosphere of the room. People were talking, laughing, and smiling. The interactions between the volunteers and the clients made for a lively environment.

The food bank is styled in a grocery store-like format, with aisles and stations of food for clients to walk through and pick what they would like to take home.

As each person came through, they were given a colored clip to signify how many people they were shopping for. The clip was blue if they were only shopping for themselves, yellow if they were shopping for two to four people, and red if they represented five or more. Each station manned by volunteers had signs signifying how many items a person could take depending on their color designation. The more people they represented, the more food they could take.

Volunteers were in charge of keeping their station stocked up and asking if the clients needed any help or wanted anything from the back. The fridge was full of pies and cakes, for people looking for a dessert.

As the day went on I got to talk to some of the other volunteers and ask about their involvement and reasons for coming out to help. The volunteers at the food bank range from people who have been doing it for years to people helping out for the first time.

“We have some volunteers that have been here for 15 or more years,” Dukich said. “We have a lot of regulars, we have leadership roles for our volunteers that are our regulars.”

One of the volunteers, Matt Senf of Sammamish was at the food bank for the first time.

“One of my friends volunteered last Wednesday and said it was a good place to volunteer so we signed up online and we showed up to do the first shift,” Senf said.

“It’s fulfilling to do something that helps other people, and the people who come here are either in our community or part of our extended community.”

Birzell said the growth of the food bank and the help of volunteers has helped her sustain the motivation to keep volunteering.

“We started this food bank almost two years ago in February. We started from nothing and we’ve grown to what we are today,” Birzell said. “To me, it’s inspiring and I get so much more from our clients that they give to me in their thanks than I give to them. I’m just blessed to be part of this whole organization.”

Around noon, the people coming to the food bank started to slow down and the morning shift of volunteers switched out with the midday shift. Curious about where all this food comes from, I asked Dukich how they provide so much for the comm unity. She explained that they get over 50 percent of their food from grocery store rescue and through partnerships with Food Lifeline and Northwest Harvest.

Grocery store rescue involves getting perfectly wholesome food that may be approaching its sell-by-date or was unsold to be donated to the food bank.

Dukich said that they work with retail stores to to rescue food seven days a week and the food that doesn’t get used is donated to farmers.

They also receive donations from food drives like the recent North Bend 12s day, which provied more 7,000 pounds of food donations

All the volunteers I spoke with that day were extremely enthusiastic about being able to help the people who need it in our community. The food bank really is for the community, by the community.

“We just want people to know that we are here,” Birzell said. “That we are here to serve and we totally believe that a healthy community is a safe community and we are trying to accomplish that with everything we do here.”

Find out more about the Snoqualmie Valley Food Bank at www.snoqualmievalleyfoodbank.org.