Volunteers play a critical role in keeping certain organizations and services up and running. From family caregivers to school volunteers, these unpaid workers are unsung heroes. One nonprofit has an urgent need for volunteers.

Jerry Brown is the director of public relations at St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix. He says they’re seeing an unprecedented number of families coming in for food.

"We're packing 50,000 emergency food boxes every month. And that's something that's done completely by volunteers."

Like 88-year-old Charles Crum. He says he comes here because it’s his way to give back and help those who are struggling.

"With rent so high and gas so high, and it's either buy gas or feed the family so that's … [a tough choice]. It's a tough choice, ma’am," said Crum.

Although volunteers are slowly coming back, Brown says it’s hard to keep up with the demand. 

"We're out collecting the food, we're out distributing the food. But building those boxes is something that we need volunteers to do."

Businesses used to send employees to volunteer occasionally but because many organizations are still remote or hybrid, it’s harder to get those teams together again. 

"And businesses were slow to come back to the office," said Brown. "You know, when you're working from home and a lot of them are still working from home. You can't get that group of 20 to 25 people from the office to come down and do a packing session because they're in 25 different homes now."

Brown says they lost roughly 80% of their volunteer force due to the pandemic, though people are slowly starting to come back.