1020 S 10th Ave, Safford, AZ 85546, US
A Great Volunteer Opportunity
Our Neighbor’s Farm and Pantry
Working for basic, quality food for everyone in Graham County. Pantry hours are: Each Tuesday & Thursday 10am - 12pm & 1pm-3pm (closed on holidays)
Visit our website (listed below) for Senior Box info.
G C I C A or Graham County Interfaith Care Alliance is a 501C3 that runs two outreaches, Our Neighbors Farm and Our Neighbors Pantry. Our Neighbors Pantry is helping to feed over 2,000 people in Graham County each month and Our Neighbors Farm grows food to distribute through the pantry. Both operations are dependent upon volunteers to accomplish their mission.
Many of us help out at the pantry and the farm, some of us help GCICA with their operations as well. If you would like to find out more about GCICA, visit their website at ourneighborsfarm.org.
Volunteers needed!
Our Neighbors Farm & Pantry serves our community through pantry distributions, outreach distributions, STEM education and growing nutrient dense produce for pantry clients. In 2020, we served 4,500 clients, feeding nearly 20,000 people within those households. Through outreach efforts, low income and senior apartments, San Carlos Apache Reservation and Greenlee County food pantries were served.
Our garden continued to grow food for pantry distribution, sold excess garden produce and produced 10 STEM education videos that were shown to elementary school classrooms in Safford and Thatcher.
We lost many senior volunteers because of their fear of contracting COVID and those volunteer numbers have not stabilized since.
We have had to turn down donated bread because we do not have volunteers to drive the pantry truck, nor do we have volunteers to load and unload tens of trays of bread. This means, our neighbors, that depend on ONF&P for bread, do not receive any. It is not just sliced bread that we receive from this donor, there are also pizza crusts, bagels, English muffins, flat bread and buns. We do feel horrible that we cannot support our neighbors in this way. We received a call last week from a senior at a low income apartment, asking when we would deliver again.
This is not the only volunteer position we have for the pantry, we need people to help on distribution days and we need help on grocery rescue days. The pantry is open Monday through Thursday, if you would like to volunteer in the pantry, please contact Dana or Stacey.
We also need help in the garden every day of the week. From weeding to planting to equipment maintenance to animal care, there is always something to do in the garden. We also need someone to organize ground maintenance in the pollinator garden. You may have noticed how Field Bindweed has been taking over the garden since it was introduced a few short years ago. We are working on different techniques to control it but without volunteers it is a losing battle. If you would like to volunteer in the garden or pollinator garden, please contact Janine or Stacey.
You can stop by the garden or pantry during the week to talk to Janine or Dana, or call or email Stacey at 1-337-326-0709, ONFandP@gmail.com.
Thank you!
~ Stacey Scarce – ONFP Director