Everything You Need to Know about Volunteering

Published On: June 6th, 2025By Categories: Miscellaneous3.3 min read

Not sure how to get started with food bank volunteering? Feeding San Diego offers many ways to get involved and give back as a volunteer. Our volunteers help reduce food waste and provide nutritious food to the San Diego community. We’ve broken down everything you need to know about becoming a Feeding San Diego volunteer.

How to Sign Up for a Volunteer Shift

Feeding San Diego uses a platform called Golden to allow volunteers to explore and sign up for volunteer opportunities easily. When you first land on the site, you’ll see a calendar of different volunteer shifts.

A screenshot of the Golden calendar

The Golden calendar of volunteer opportunities for June 2025

These opportunities may include:

  • Food sorting: A Feeding San Diego mainstay! This two-hour volunteer shift at the Feeding San Diego distribution center in Sorrento Valley happens six days a week. Volunteers glean fresh produce, pack boxes, sort donated food, or take on other critical projects to help provide nutritious food to the community.
  • Feeding San Diego Marketplace: Feeding San Diego’s Marketplace, a no-cost grocery store in Sorrento Valley, distributes food to families in need. Marketplace volunteers glean, pack, stock, clean, and interact with shoppers to help them access food.
  • Produce or mobile pantry: Feeding San Diego has mobile and produce pantry sites throughout San Diego County, primarily in rural areas that are considered food deserts. Pantry volunteers help set up and run the distributions. They glean produce to ensure it’s fresh, prepare the pantry, and interact directly with attendees to distribute food to our neighbors.
  • Partner agencies: Feeding San Diego partners with other non-profits throughout the county to provide food to the community—these are called agencies. Many of these partners post their volunteer opportunities on the calendar, such as distributing food at their food pantries or picking up donated food from local stores.

You can use the filters on the left-hand side of the calendar to find volunteer shifts near you and focus on opportunities that interest you.

When you click on a posted shift, you can view more information about it, such as:

  • A description of the activity
  • Volunteer eligibility
  • The vibe of the shift
  • The general location

The details page of a Friday Morning Food Sorting at Distribution Center volunteer shift

An example of a volunteer opportunity details page

If the shift interests you, click “Sign Up” and complete the signup form. Golden will send you the details of your shift via email.

Feeding San Diego or Partner Shifts: Am I Always Volunteering at Feeding San Diego?

There’s one key difference to understand when deciding which volunteer shift to pick. Feeding San Diego allows our partners to post volunteer shifts on Golden, so you may choose a shift that is at a location of another non-profit or faith-based organization. These are our partners and we provide food for their distributions, but we do not run these shifts.

So, if you attend a volunteer shift at Feeding San Diego’s distribution center in Sorrento Valley or one of our direct service distributions, it may be very different from attending one supporting a partner agency. They have their own requirements, eligibility, and expectations. However, whatever shift you pick, you’ll be helping prevent food waste and provide nutritious food to your neighbors facing hunger.

Can’t Find a Shift You Like?

Feeding San Diego offers a variety of volunteer opportunities. Shifts fill up quickly, so you may not see an opportunity on the day or at the time you’d like to volunteer.

Volunteer opportunities with Feeding San Diego are published one month in advance. If you can’t find a shift, we recommend checking back later. Availability can change, as people’s plans shift, or new opportunities are posted.

Start Your Food Bank Volunteering Journey!

Volunteering at Feeding San Diego is a great way to give back to your community. Sign up today to volunteer as an individual or with a group. Or check out other volunteer opportunities.