The Maryland Food Bank held their annual Volunteer Appreciation event on Saturday, April 20, 2024 as part of National Volunteer Month, an annual month-long initiative dedicated to honoring volunteers who donate their time to give back to their communities.
The event was held at MFB’s Baltimore headquarters and included remarks from MFB leadership, a tour of the food bank for volunteers, and catering provided by the Maryland Food Bank’s own culinary training program, FoodWorks.
Maryland Food Bank leadership presented the 2024 Paul Lynner Award for Volunteer Excellence to one devoted volunteer, Martha Taylor. Martha is a professor at Loyola and joined MFB’s team of volunteers in 2020. Since then, she has logged hundreds of hours packing meals in the kitchen and assisting in MFB’s Marketplace. Named for MFB’s former Volunteer Coordinator, Paul Lynner, this award recognizes outstanding volunteers who demonstrate unwavering commitment to the food bank’s mission, while going above and beyond during each volunteer effort.
For more than 40 years, the Maryland Food Bank has relied heavily on volunteers to help carry out day-to-day operations and expand the organization’s ability to provide food assistance to food-insecure neighbors across the state of Maryland. MFB volunteers can do anything from gleaning fields, sorting and packing food, and preparing meals, to assisting Network Partners and supporting MFB staff in office operations.
In Fiscal Year 2023 (July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023), MFB received support from 4,877 unique volunteers with a total of 36,691 volunteer hours logged.
