For Sharon Liu with Rick Engineering Company, the joy of volunteering began as a high school student in Southern California. She dedicated much of her time then to the Second Harvest Food Bank in Orange County. While in college she didn’t find much time to give back, but as soon as she landed a professional position in San Diego she looked for opportunities to get involved in the local community. Luckily for us, she found the San Diego Food Bank.At Rick Engineering Company, Sharon has organized monthly volunteer visits to the Food Bank’s Miramar warehouse to sort food and pack boxes. This year she even brought a team to the recent San Diego Blues Festival. The group worked at the ticket sales booth and, according to the Food Bank’s Robin Skale, “totally rocked the house!” But where Sharon and her colleagues from Rick Engineering truly shine is in their internal and highly competitive food drives. This year, the local company raised 2,766 pounds of food for the Food Bank during its food drive in September by holding an internal competition between four teams within the company. In total, the group provided the equivalent of 2,305 meals for low-income San Diegans! Sharon says the food drive idea started a couple years ago and has turned into a real competition for the company’s teams. In addition to providing critically-needed food, participating in the food drive competition has opened the eyes of some her colleagues to the needs of the community.”Through the food drives and volunteer work, I think we have gained more exposure about what the San Diego Food Bank does and how we can help alleviate the hunger problem in our region,” said Sharon, an Associate Water Resources Designer. “It’s been a good thing. I also appreciate how the Food Bank makes it so easy to host a food drive and to sign up as a volunteer.”The Food Bank sends a sincere thank you on this “Thankful Thursday” to Sharon and all the kind and generous folks at Rick Engineering Company for their on-going efforts to provide food to people faced with food insecurity in our community. See you and your crew in the warehouse soon!
