Volunteer

Yes! Mini is mighty! While some rescues are large, the majority of them can fit into a sedan. If you’re unsure about the size of the rescue, check the number of boxes or bags it is – most boxes are about the size of a small moving box – easy to lift by one person. Or if you have a super small car, stick to smaller rescues like UDF and Chick-Fil-A instead of our large produce rescues like Kroger or Trader Joe's.

When you click on a rescue there’s a tiny upwards arrow (^) in the middle of the screen that you can click to view more details. Here there’s an estimate of what kind of food you’ll be picking up. We’ll also include notes here such as “heavy lifting required” or “large vehicle needed” so it’s always helpful to view before claiming! 

Food donors are expected to provide good, edible food, but occasionally something might slip through. We encourage you to take a quick look to ensure we don't accidentally deliver unusable food to a nonprofit. If you wouldn’t serve the food on your table, you are empowered to decline the donation. For more details or guidance, please refer to the safety training.

The clock is ticking, but maybe not as fast as you think! When you click on a rescue, it gives you a time range such as 10:30-11:30am. This is a range for PICK UP. In this example you just need to arrive at the food donor no later than 11:30 and then take it directly to the nonprofit. 

If you have any issues, questions, or concerns while on your rescue, you can always reach us at 513-449-1698. We recommend saving it to your phone. There’s also a phone icon in the app that you can tap on to call us at any time during your rescue if you have an issue.

If you are unable to complete a rescue, it’s easy to drop it in the app. Simply go to the “my rescues” tab and click “drop this rescue.” Or, if you have signed up for a weekly rescue, you can “request a sub” and then either drop a specific week or cancel all weeks.

If it’s within two hours of the start of the rescue, you won’t be able to drop it in the app. Just give us a call and we’ll handle it from there.

After you click “Arrived at Pick Up”, special instructions pop up on your screen. you’ll see an option to edit the quantities that you picked up. You’ll give your best guess. If you picked up something that wasn’t listed you can add an item manually or leave a note when you are rating your rescue on the last screen so that we can update!

It’s super helpful for us to get photos in order to see what food is being rescued! Please always take a photo of your rescue! Not a fan of selfies? That’s okay – just snap a photo of the food you rescued and click “next” to upload it to the app.

A good place to start is our YouTube page which has a lot of different tutorials! Still stuck? Give us a call at 513-449-1698. Our dispatch team is always happy to help you.

If you are unable to do rescues and still want to help – or you do rescues and want to get more involved, let us know! We have “superhero” volunteers who help us with other tasks including captaining a Kroger store, helping at events or with admin work, or even doing data analytics. If you want to get involved in a bigger way, email us to let us know!