GOOD TIMES
When is a good time to volunteer?
While just about anytime is a good time, here are some specific days and times. Note special times in red.

• Monday 9-11am to help with the fruit+veg delivery and 2-6pm to refill bins and jars after the weekend.
• Tuesday 10am-noon to help us set up the shop
• Wednesday 9-11am to help with the fruit+veg delivery
• Thursday 10am-noon to help us set up the shop, 4-6pm to refill bins and jars, 7.30-9.30pm to help with the close up.
• Friday 9-11am to help with the fruit+veg delivery and 2-5pm to help refill bins and jars.
• Saturdays 3-5pm to help with refilling
• Sundays 1-5pm to help with refilling.

While Alfalfa House has a number of paid staff to ensure stock is bought, the till is staffed, the place is cleaned and so on, it relies on considerable support from its network of committed member volunteers.

IMPORTANT. If you're new to volunteering at Alfalfa House, before you do your first volunteer shift, we'll take you through some basic OH+S training and get you familiar with the shop and storeroom layout so you'll know where things are. It takes about a half hour. Tours are on Mondays at noon. To book in for a tour, please email the Co-op Coordinator by clicking here.

CURRENT TASKS

1. Bakers? We are in need of bakers and sellers for our vegan bake sale on the 2nd of July!

2. Help our garden grow! The garden could do with your green thumb to care for the garden – planting, weeding, watering, tidying, planning and so forth.

3. Teachers Teachers are needed for courses in the CO-OP. Looking to do more nutrition courses, women's and men's specific nutrition and health course teachers. We'd love to have skill sharing as well. Show us how to make your favorite dish?

4. Artists Looking for artists to help beautify the shop! Specifically looking for someone who works with metals!

5. WE NEED A CARPENTER!!! We need a carpenter with tools to help upgrade the shelving in the co-op!!

6. Soup makers! A lot of the people in the shop don't really take breaks so that we can get all of the work finished during the day. If you ever have extra vegan food at the house you'd like to give us for lunch we would all really really appreciate it!!

ONGOING TASKS

1. Helping with Tuesday setup. Help set up the co-op for the day's trade, ie, help put the fruit+veg and the bread out and get the shop ready. Time: 10am-noon.

2. Keeping it clean. There are several cleaning projects we would like some help with. For more details, please contact our Groceries Stock Coordinator by clicking here.

3. Give us some advice. Anyone with experience and/or expertise in financial management, strategy, and planning would be welcomed with open arms.

If any of these interest you, please contact the Co-op Coordinator by clicking here.

FROM A VOLUNTEER'S MOUTH...
Volunteering at the coop can be fun and informative, plus there is the added bonus of earning a 25% discount when shopping at Alfalfa House (basically 2 hours of volunteering a week entitles one to the discount for a single shop).

How does one become a volunteer you ask? Relatively easily - after a half hour's induction course on the premises (informative I promise), whereby the coop's coordinator takes wannabe volunteers through the basics and OH&S requirements, all a volunteer has to do is turn up when they are available and assist staff with whatever needs to be done.

Tasks include general refilling of produce in the store (not surprisingly chocolate and coffee are favourites), assisting the lovely Renata and Janne with the fruit and vegetable orders, cleaning, gardening, and occasionaly keeping a toddler or two occupied with toys while mum/dad shop!

Regular volunteer Penny, pictured. Article written by Anthony Krithinakis.

Though volunteers can 'drop-in' to help at any time, a blackboard in the coop details when volunteers are most needed. For instance, those early birds who prefer to assist with the fruit and vegetable orders are required on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, between 9 and 11. Or for those with a strong(er) back, forget the gym, there are groceries a-plenty to put away with the always grateful Monika and Andrew on Thursday evenings. Of course, volunteers are also welcome to come in on weekends. It is really up to you.

The coop staff are more than happy to lend a hand if you have any queries, and with a bit of luck, you may even score a cup of tea for your efforts!

I for one have been volunteering now for almost 2 years, and still enjoy coming in whenever time allows. I have met many wonderful volunteers as well as coop customers (you!) over that time, and can say with quiet confidence that I now know my quinoa from my amaranth. I guess overdosing on raw cacao beans on breaks helps.

WHAT YOU GET
IN RETURN
Volunteering two hours of your time earns members a single unlimited 25% discount off the marked price of all goods in the shop.

Then there's the satisfaction of volunteering, of freely giving of your time and knowing you are making a difference and that you are appreciated.

IS THERE SOME SCIENCE TO IT ALL?
If it feels good to be 'good', it might be only natural. Neuroscientists at the US National Institutes of Health, scanned the brains of volunteers as they were asked to think about a scenario involving either donating a sum of money to charity or keeping it for themselves. The results showed that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggests, is not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather is basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.
Washington Post
May 28, 2007