Published: Monday, October 29, 2012 1:04 AM CDT

A local volunteering group is in need of additional volunteers in order to keep the program running — and there is a major incentive to volunteer.

SHARE is a non-profit organization that offers people that volunteer doing any number of different things for just two hours a month grocery packages that add up to a savings of about 50 percent.

“Times are tough and people need to be able to rely on each other for a lot of different things,” said Sam Mason, site coordinator for SHARE in Yankton. “SHARE is a reward through reduced-cost groceries for volunteering and helping other people out in the community.

“Right now we don’t have very many volunteers so we’re hoping to find ways on how we can keep this group going,” she said . “We have about six people volunteering now, but we’ve had anywhere between 10-12 active volunteers in the past.”

Mason added that most of the current volunteers are based out of the Peace Presbyterian Church in Yankton, but she said SHARE is not a church group.

“This is more of a community project, not a church project, because it benefits the whole community,” she said.

It takes about six people to package the food one Saturday a month for about an hour. It also takes another person to handle the ordering of the grocery package, one person to call in the orders, and drivers are always needed to pick the food up in Sioux City. Mason added that drivers are compensated $40 for their gas. Right now, there are two drivers that have been rotating. Drivers should have a pickup truck or mini van that can accommodate all of the food orders.

SHARE was started about 20 years ago to benefit community members for volunteering.

“It’s just a reward for people to volunteer helping others,” Mason said. “Volunteering can be a lot of different things, including helping a neighbor, babysitting or structured volunteering.”

She added that a lot of people may believe SHARE is a food bank when in fact it is not. The group does not take donations from other people, there are no membership fees or dues and the program is not based on income.

Mason said the food used in the program “comes from Iowa and is bought by vendors and they try to keep the food local to the Midwest. They distribute throughout the Midwest and it’s really just to help the community out.”

Most of the food that is purchased is fresh, though sometimes fruit comes frozen.

“Our mission is really to reach out to the community to benefit other people,” said Laurie Peterson, distribution coordinator. “We’re trying to create a network of people helping one another.”

Members of the group are trying to get other volunteers by going out to radio stations in the area, talking to other people and distributing flyers throughout businesses in town.

“The last few years have really been tough times for people all over. There is a lot of division within the country now and this is an opportunity not to have that,” Mason said. “The organization is primarily volunteer-driven and it would be great if other people came to volunteer.”

SHARE began again in Yankton a few years ago, following a hiatus, when volunteers agreed to start it back up because of the benefits it can offer the community.

“For a lot of volunteers, it won’t be a situation where they have to come every month. It would be more like you telling us when you can be there to help out,” Peterson said. “If we have a long list of backups, it will really help.”

Mason and Peterson noted that there are no restrictions on the type of volunteering you can do to meet the two-hour guideline each month.

“A lot of people really don’t know about the group in Yankton,” Mason said. “I volunteered at the clinic a few months ago and they didn’t know about it, so I went and printed some information off for them.”

The group in Yankton typically has about 35 food orders each month, which is down from the 50 orders a month it had in the past. Mason and Peterson hope to expand the program so they can have a truck deliver the food to Yankton from Sioux City.

Anyone interested in volunteering can contact Sam Mason at 605-661-7378 or Laurie Peterson at 605-665-5541 for more information.

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal