Cash Manager Limited: Xeros volunteer at San Francisco Food Bank

May 14, 2015

Xeros volunteer at San Francisco Food Bank

San Francisco is the home of Xero’s US operations. Between the culture, opportunity and idyllic beauty, it’s a great city to live and work in. But it’s also very expensive, which can making living tough for many people. Despite being one of America’s wealthiest cities, 25 percent of San Francisco residents cannot afford all the food they need.

We at Xero want to do our part to make a difference. So we recently shut down operations for one day and took the entire team to the San Francisco Food Bank to spend the day volunteering.

Our local food bank is quite a sight to see. It operates out of a huge warehouse filled with shelves stacked to the ceiling with donated food. Forklifts zip up and down the aisles, readying food for distribution. You can’t help but notice how efficiently they operate. They have to – there are so many people that depend on them.

Volunteer work in action

It was impressive how quickly they trained us and got us going. It can’t be easy to wrangle up a mass of excited volunteers but they quickly gave us a tour, briefed us on the rules and put us to work.

We were split in two groups throughout the day. Half of us started the day sorting and boxing apples, while the rest of the Xeros removed the leaves from radishes. In only a few hours we managed to box more than 12,000 pounds of apples and prepped over 1,200 pounds of radishes. Don’t be too disappointed in team radish, though. Apples are heavier and less offensive to the nose too.

Xero staff sort apples at San Francisco Food Bank

Arthur Garica shows off some healthy apples (Kathleen O’Rourke and Jesse Kuznia in the background).

Later in the day, we moved on to labeling boxes of veggie burgers and preparing cabbage. The final figures here were over 8,000 pounds of cabbage prepped and more than 5,400 boxes labelled. By the end of the day, we had prepared over 23,580 pounds of food.

Make no mistake about it, Xero is proud of the contribution we made. But it pales in comparison to the work the San Francisco Food Bank and their partners do every day. Last year, they distributed over 46 million pounds of food, which is enough for 105,000 meals each day.

There are countless organizations that need your help

If you live or work in the Bay Area, we encourage you to contribute to your local food bank any way you can. These organizations do amazing work. They feed a huge number of homeless, children, students, working families and other residents who aren’t always guaranteed a next meal.

If you’re interested in volunteer work – as a business team, family or individual – you should definitely investigate volunteering opportunities in your area. There are always people, animals and various causes in need – and they will be eternally grateful for your help.

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