Lanette Taylor-Sherman packs a meal kit for the Food Bank of Delaware’s Backpack Program
By Shannon Simcox
Organizations providing basic necessities like food, shelter, and complex therapeutic needs have long learned how to extend a dollar for their communities. But the pandemic also strained volunteer hours, exacerbating an already declining resource.
Area nonprofit leaders say they are seeing community members return to donating their time, though for some, efforts are ongoing.
According to the Volunteering and Civic Life in America report from AmeriCorps and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans volunteered at a rate more than six percentage points lower in 2021 (23.2%) than in 2019 (30%) and lower still than in 2015 (24.9%).
“Just by the very nature of the state of emergency, a lot of people could no longer even volunteer,” said Sheila Bravo, president and CEO of the Delaware Alliance of Nonprofit Advancement (DANA) .
This hit DANA members in the areas of basic needs particularly hard, including organizations providing food and shelter to Delawareans. Bravo said: “We had many organizations that had to redeploy staff into roles that had been done by volunteers, which really also speaks to the value of volunteers.”