Yoly gives back by sorting food
One always knows when Yoly Casarez is at St. Vincent de Paul. She’s easy to identify by her welcoming and exuberant voice, and the spry spring in her step as she bounds around the Food Reclamation’s quality control area.
Yoly has been a consistent volunteer for more than four years, usually spending five to six hours a 2-3 times per week when she’s in Phoenix (she splits her time between her homes in Phoenix and Roswell, New Mexico).
Yoly makes a difference in her volunteer spot of choice: Quality control. By going through all the donated food and making sure that the packaging isn’t damaged or that the food isn’t expired, she helps get food to SVdP's community pantries, and by extension, families, in a consistent and timely manner.
“Through her hands, she’s probably checked millions of pieces of food,” said Adam Young, SVdP’s director of food services. “She’s probably helped build hundreds of thousands of food boxes. That doesn’t happen overnight, that’s commitment.”
For Yoly, there are a number of reasons why she gives so much of her time.
“I come here to give, but let me tell you, you guys give more to me than I give to you,” she said. “I feel like the more I give, the happier I am.”
She also loves the community and friends she’s been able to make in her time sorting food.
“I haven’t met somebody here I didn’t like,” she said. “As I'm walking around, I can hear people praising other people. Everybody's all cheery and friendly and positive. There's nothing better than that… We have a fun group. Everyone checks on each other.”
Surprisingly, Yoly’s passion for service is a relatively new development in her life. A little more than four years ago, Yoly’s friend in Roswell, New Mexico invited her to volunteer some time at a soup kitchen she had started. At first, she wasn’t interested. She hadn’t grown up volunteering and hadn’t done it throughout her life, but after her friend hounded her for a few weeks she reluctantly agreed to help make Christmas cookies. The experience totally changed her perspective on volunteering.
“I came back [to Phoenix], and I turned on the local news, and St. Vincent de Paul was talking about how they needed help and volunteers. I thought, ‘Wow, I did it over there. Maybe I can help here,’” she said.
She came in and enjoyed her time with St. Vincent de Paul so much that she has been a regular ever since. She’s even encouraging others to volunteer if they get the chance.
“I feel like a person will get more out of it than they give if they volunteer. They can get a lot of joy and happiness,” she said. “The bottom line is you're helping another human being, and that's what life's about. The end.”
