This is possible only because of the volunteers who help out at the food shelf on a daily basis, according to Bill Beyer, the president of the food shelf board.

“We had 500 volunteers in 2015 and that’s a conservative number, because when we have groups volunteer we don’t always count all the people in the group,” he said.

Beyer has been with the Bemidji Community Food Shelf for 25 years and has seen a lot of changes, including with the demographic of volunteers.

“I was the young person eight years ago and I’m going to be 75. Most of the volunteers were women and older men, but now we have all kinds of people volunteering,” he said. “We have grown a lot. In 2008, we had around 100 volunteers and we had 500 in 2015.”

Mary Mitchell, director of the Bemidji Community Food Shelf, said that while the food shelf does receive a lot of volunteers, summer is one of the hardest times for donations.

“Summer is the biggest because kids come home from school,” she said. “We see our highest use and lowest donations in the summer.”

Linda Shutter, a volunteer of two and a half years, agreed.

“One change is that we have a lot less produce to put on the shelf,” she said.

Shutter volunteers every week at the food shelf since she retired.

“I retired and needed something to do, and if I went to the humane society, I would have brought animals home,” she said.

One of the newest volunteers is Willam Sea.

“I’ve been volunteering here for about and hour. My wife is new to the community and wanted to get involved right away,” Sea said on a recent Wednesday, his first day volunteering. “I’m a professor at BSU and a number of my students come to volunteer. It’s been a good morning; it’s exciting when the food trucks come in.”

Mitchell and Beyer said they love having new volunteers, but like to have a heads up when people are coming so they can plan work for them.

“We have a lot of a lot of local churches that ‘own’ certain shifts. They have a Wednesday morning or Thursday afternoon and they send a group to work that shift,” Mitchell said. “But we also have individuals that come to us and say they want to volunteer.”

Beyer added that anyone who comes to the door will be able to help.

“I’m proud of the fact that there hasn’t been a single person that comes to the door that I can’t find a job for,” Beyer said. “We need everybody to make this happen, all types of people of all abilities.”

Beyer emphasized that the food shelf is a group effort and needs multiple people to keep running.

“When we work together miracles can happen,” he said.