Volunteer Profile: LeeAnne Zwinkel Shares Her Time and Talents with Food Lifeline

When LeeAnne Zwinkel isn’t at work or watching old Perry Mason television shows with her husband and dogs, she volunteers at .  

Food Lifeline, describes themselves as “a local hunger relief organization, serving Western Washington.”  In fact, 96 percent of their revenue goes directly to feed hungry people.  Last year, they fed more than 686,000 people in the Greater Seattle area.

Here are some statistics from Food Lifeline:

• More than 45 percent of the individuals using a food bank, meal program or shelter in Western Washington have some form of post-secondary education.

 • Only 9 percent are actually homeless.

• 37 percent of the people Food Lifeline serves are children.

• 12 percent of the people Food Lifeline serves are seniors

Hunger causes many families to make difficult choices.

• 47 percent of the people Food Lifeline serves had to choose between food and paying for heat or utilities.

• 29 percent of the people Food Lifeline serves had to choose between food and paying for medicine or medical care.

• 42 percent of the people Food Lifeline serves had to choose between paying for food and paying for rent or mortgage.

Karen Chernotsky, who serves as the volunteer manager at Food Lifeline, nominated Zwinkel as a great volunteer.  Zwinkel first heard about Food Lifeline because her office participated in the annual Food Frenzy competition. 

 Food Frenzy is a creative competition of over 100 different Seattle businesses (banks, law firms, environmental offices, accounting practices, construction and design offices and more) that rally together to raise funds and food for Food Lifeline in hopes of ending hunger for children living in Western Washington.

Zwinkel has been volunteering at Food Lifeline since the fall of 2008.  In the past, she has also helped out with Foodlife-related events such as Seattle Sounders games, the Seattle Symphony and the annual Letter Carriers drive.

 When asked, “What do you do at Food Lifeline?”  Zwinkel replied, “That depends on where the need is the greatest.  Most evenings I work at the end of the processing line, stacking the full boxes onto pallets and moving the pallets to the area where they will be stored until being sent to the larger distribution center.  I keep track of the number of pallets processed and the total amount of food repacked by the volunteers for the night.”

We asked Zwinkel, “Why did you choose to volunteer at Food Lifeline? There are many non-profit groups out there.  What is special about Food Lifeline?”  

Zwinkel said, “There are a couple of reasons.  Foremost is the fact that I was a food bank recipient nearly two decades ago.  I know what it is like to be working hard as you can and still unable to put food on the table.  Currently, I work for the government— a few years ago when the budget woes of our state and local governments necessitated the laying off of many hundreds of employees, I remembered the food bank and the connection that there is sometimes a very fine line between making it and going hungry.  It was at that time that I contacted Karen at Food Lifeline to see if they needed volunteers.”

We asked, “Why do you spend time volunteering?  You are not getting paid for your time, what inspires you to make a continued commitment to Food Lifeline? 

Zwinkel said, “It’s hard for me to answer this one and not feel like I’m on a soap box, but I think that everyone should have a cause or do something for it, whether it’s drop a quarter in a donation jar, give some of their time, or even just vote.” 

Zwinkel concluded the interview by saying; “We have a wonderful time at Food Lifeline.  It is great to see the people of the community come together and do something productive.  Sometimes the work is hard, even a little gross when rotten food shows up, but it is always rewarding.  Hopefully, someone will read this article and call up to volunteer …that would be great.”

If you or your group is interested in re-packaging food for distribution to local food banks, please call Food Lifeline at (206) 545-3663. 

For more information about Food Lifeline please see the video related to this article and/or visit www.foodlifeline.org.