Off of Prairie Ave in South Bend, easy to miss if you aren’t looking closely, is a warehouse a few hundred feet off the road. Take a step inside to find a well-oiled assembly line, full of hard workers and kind faces.

Cultivate Culinary is “devoted to organizing community resources to fight hunger and reduce food waste.” Those working at Cultivate give off this feeling about them that they truly want to be there, which makes sense as it’s volunteering. The program provides frozen meals to children and people in need, the majority of food being put in backpacks for school children who don’t have food for the weekend.

For volunteers at the warehouse, a variety of tasks can be done. First, labels are printed at the computer for whatever the meal that day is, and then the food is scooped in to the containers, and finally they are sealed at the machine. After that they are loaded onto shelves to be tallied into that day’s total. Everyone, of course, wears gloves to keep things sanitary and at the end of the night the counters are all disinfected.

Cultivate has made national news and has even been featured on the Rachael Ray Show. Overall it is a great service organization that can help get service hours. If volunteering, remember to wear pants and a hat if you want to avoid wearing a hairnet.

For those interested in volunteering alone or with a group, sign up at the link below:

https://cultivate-food-rescue.volunteerlocal.com/volunteer/