One Brick Makes Volunteering Easy

An atmosphere of joyful cooperation and friends with a common purpose to stamp out hunger made a big difference last night.  Almost 30 One Brick volunteers re-packaged 10,500 pounds of apples and close to one ton of salmon at

Food Lifeline and its circle of generous donors, collected food that would otherwise become part of a landfill, “rescued food.”  One Brick helped to package these items for distribution at local food banks in western Washington.

Founded in San Francisco of December of 2001, these One Brickers describe themselves on the organization's Web site as a group that "provides support to local non-profit and community organizations by creating a unique, social and flexible volunteer environment for those interested in making a concrete difference in the community."

 They enable people to get involved, have an impact and have fun, without the requirements of individual long-term commitments.

During 2010, One Brick contributed 65,000 hours of free volunteer hours to the many communities they serve.  The following cities have One Brick chapters:  San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, and Chicago, Washington DC. Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Seattle, Orlando, Indianapolis, and Silicon Valley.  One Brick is run strictly by volunteers who enjoy the social aspect of the organization and different non-profit groups they assist.

 At Food Lifeline, Ben Morris instructed the One Brick folks on the duties of food re-packaging.  Ben is a volunteer operations coordinator and has been employed by Food Lifeline for four years.  However, he started out as volunteer for one and a half years before getting paid to do the work he does now.  Some of the One Brick workers shared stories about volunteering with One Brick.

Standing at 6-feet-6 inches, Cleve Noyes credits One Brick with giving him an opportunity to help out his community.  He has enjoyed volunteering with One Brick at several places such as The Folklife Festival, Union Gospel Mission and Farestart.

April Swenson who works as a nanny by day shared her experiences with One Brick.  

"It is convenient when my calendar fits into the One Brick volunteer events.  Sometimes my schedule is so up in the air and I don't know how to be committed," Swenson said. "One Brick makes it easy to volunteer."

 An insurance risk management professional from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Theresa Fabela talked to Patch about a unique time with One Brick.  

"I was with One Brick at Magnuson Park working at a 5K run," Fabela said. "At the end, there was plenty of left over bagels and other food.  We filled up my car and took the food to a feeding site under the freeway for homeless people."  

Larry Hopt and his 15-year-old step-daughter, Catherine Lockhart recently heard about One Brick.  Catherine goes to Blanchet High School.  Like many schools, Blanchet requires students to have a number of volunteer hours underneath their belt.  The time Catherine put in with One Brick will count towards those hours. 

If you want to have fun while giving back to your community, please visit www.onebrick.org for more information.  To understand what role Food Lifeline plays in feeding Western Washington citizens, please visit www.foodlifeline.org.