Jim Hedden is one of the most valuable volunteers we have at Project SHARE. He retired a few years ago and really enjoyed his leisure time at first. But Jim had always been active and when he saw an ad in the newspaper asking for bingo runners, he generously offered to help. When the bingo games were rescheduled for “late Sunday evening”, Jim asked to be reassigned. He is a morning person and couldn’t take the late nights.

Meet Jim

He now helps in the Project SHARE emergency food area 2 days a week. Families who are living below the poverty line are eligible to come to Project SHARE once per month to supplement their family’s groceries with food from our warehouse. Each family is entitled to about 3 to 4 days worth of food. An average of 60,000 pounds of food is given out each month to those in need who live in Niagara Falls. Almost 350 pounds of food is distributed every hour through the emergency food program. An average of over 80 families per day receive assistance with food.

Shockingly, 40% are children. The “food room” is the best way to ensure that consumers of our food bank service are treated with dignity as they choose the groceries themselves with the assistance of volunteer monitors. Jim says that the food room is the “nicest place to be” because his volunteer team has a good chemistry and they just “clicked”. Jim is fun to work with and his friendly manner helps put people at ease who find it difficult to come to Project SHARE and accept food donations and other help for their families.

Born in Brantford, his family moved to Hamilton and then to Niagara Falls when he was a child. He and his wife Eleanor were high school sweethearts while attending Stamford Collegiate but he says he doesn’t remember who proposed to whom. They have 2 daughters and 2 grandchildren. Jim worked for years as a heating and air conditioning salesman but when Lennox bought the dealership he went to work for Direct Energy. Eleanor and Jim are both very active. Eleanor does Tai Chi and Jim enjoys sports – football, baseball and golf. Jim doesn’t have time for more activities because he also volunteers for fundraising events and Project SHARE’s Community Garden. Twice a week Jim fills the rain barrels, shovels dirt and picks produce that is ready to go in the food room at Project SHARE. Jim reports that is doesn’t miss the business world. When you volunteer, you can “do what you want when you want”, he states. Jim especially enjoys watching things grow in the garden.

Volunteers are the backbone of Project SHARE. Every year, over 13,000 hours are conducted by volunteers at Project SHARE. This is equivalent to 8 full time staff at a rate of 35 hours per week. In one considers the value of those hours in a monetary perspective, even at minimum wage, that value has a total of $140,000. It doesn’t take much effort or qualifications to volunteers. As long as your heart is in the right place, we would like to you to consider volunteering at Project SHARE….like Jim.