Amazing Volunteer Corner - Tom Yoder

“The vision of my church is to ‘Passionately Follow Jesus,’ and this is one way that I can try to do that. I want to share Jesus’ love with others.”

Tom Yoder volunteers three days a week in our Food Pantry, most of the time as a guest processor. He started volunteering at Church Community Services in 2019 and has become an integral member of the volunteer staff.

“My favorite thing is just being able to serve the community,” Yoder said. “I really appreciate the other volunteers that I work with. I also enjoy working with Michael, Kris, Gabriela and Julian very much.”

Food Pantry Director Michael Downing is one of many people with a high opinion of Tom.

“Tom is so patient and so even keel, and he speaks so well that he’s become like our processor trainer,” Downing said. “Whenever we need to train someone to process guests, we send them to Tom, and he teaches our processors how to work the Food Bank Manager program. He also interacts well with our guests and answers their questions.”

Tom has begun studying Spanish and has significantly improved his ability to communicate with our many Spanish speaking guests.

In addition to being a great communicator, Tom has also helped the Food Pantry with his woodworking skills. Known by some as the “cart-meister,” he’s spent time repairing and fixing old carts.

“He bought additional wheels and installed them and fixed carts we thought were old,” Downing said. “He even saw where the other carts eventually weakened, and he built a cart that already fashioned another strengthening member so it wouldn’t fail as soon as other carts would.”

In late 2019, when guests were using shopping carts to collect pantry items with point values, Tom designed and built a grid system out of wood to fit inside the shopping carts to enable the counting of points to be easier and more efficient.