For Georgette Brousseau, the path to Second Harvest Food Bank started in New York City. As a twenty-five-year veteran of imported apparel production, she's well traveled and well trained to take on any system or process. Her former company in New York volunteered at God’s Love We Deliver, a non-profit with a mission to help prepare and deliver meals to people living with severe illness.
In 2012, Georgette moved to High Point. When asked how long it was before she knew she wanted to volunteer with Second Harvest she said, “within a week, I saw an ad for the Food Bank, and it sounded a lot like what I was used to--and so it began.”
Georgette was immediately impressed by Second Harvest’s eighteen-county reach and its community driven model. At first, she donated food and funds, but once she retired, she also donated her time. Over the course of a year, she tried different opportunities to serve. She loved the kitchen and quips how she loved looking at “the cauldron that was her height.” While in the kitchen, Georgette says she felt felt useful and part of a greater good. She also spent time sorting food and grading eggs. (Most people do not realize that every egg that comes to Second Harvest is inspected for quality.) In another role, Georgette assisted with conversions of recipe measurements and learned how to derive individual meal nutrient information and compute the cost of each individual meal.
Though she loved working in the kitchen, Georgette saw a need for her skills set in the offices of Second Harvest’s Community Meals program, managed by Providence chefs. This volunteer role merged her passion for being part of a community nourishing neighbors with her expertise in data entry and multiple software systems. Georgette loves her volunteer work and is happy to come to Winston-Salem to be a part of the Food Bank community and contribute.
Georgette says there is tremendous respect for all the volunteers. She jokes, “I do not know if it is in the employee handbook, but all the (paid) employees are constantly saying they appreciate all the volunteers. With the scope of what they address in North Carolina, there is no way they could perform all they do without the help of volunteers.”
Recently, Georgette enlisted the assistance of her neighbors to package meal boxes. The effort provided ten thousand meals to victims of Hurricane Helene in Asheville. Georgette was proud to share that her team made nine hundred boxes. They had a lot of laughs and camaraderie while providing restorative meals.
When asked what she would say to others who might be interested in volunteering, Georgette was quick to say, “If you have time, care, and concern, what you get back can’t be measured.”
Georgette has created SOP’s (her jargon) Standard Operating Procedures that are effective and serviceable for anyone who is a part of the Community Meals team. How long will she volunteer with Second Harvest? “It is very gratifying! I will do it til’ I can’t.”
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