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Central Indiana organizations ready to welcome back volunteers

Gleaners Food Bank is looking for drivers and Big Brothers Big Sisters is hoping to find more adult mentors.

INDIANAPOLIS — When the pandemic hit last year, many Hoosiers understandably stopped volunteering. Now, as the world slowly returns to normal, the need for volunteers continues to rise. 

"We need volunteers," said Sarah Estell with Gleaners Food Bank. "We know that this is going to be a multi-year recovery for many of the people that we serve and, particularly, for those folks that found themselves in need of food assistance for the first time during the pandemic. That's about 40 percent of the people that are coming through."

Not only is Gleaners looking for volunteers to help in their warehouse, but they're also looking to maintain programs they started during COVID.

"We're making permanent our home delivery program that we started during COVID so we need volunteer drivers," Estell said.

Across the city at Big Brothers Big Sisters, they're also looking for volunteers to return.

"We have a number of kids still waiting for service and it's taking longer to get to them right now just because we're seeing less individuals volunteering," said Darcy Palmer-Schultz, CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Indiana.

She said they have 1,000 kids signed up in central Indiana waiting to be paired with a big.

"Our volunteer parameters are pretty broad," she said. "We're looking for volunteers who are 19 years of age and older. There's no cut off on the upper end."

She said there is a high need for male volunteers.

"We do have mostly boys waiting so we have a high need for male volunteers and couples who can volunteer together so that's a big priority," she said.

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