Have fun, help fight hunger and hear the greatest blues artists in the world. Volunteer at the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, Friday, July 1, through Monday, July 4, 2005. More than 1,500 volunteers are the driving force behind the festival's success.

The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival is the second largest blues festival in the country and the largest blues festival on the West Coast. It's also Oregon Food Bank's largest fund-raiser.

Here's how you can help.

• Be a gate volunteer. Gate volunteers accept donations at the four entrances to the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival. Qualifications: Enthusiasm! And you must be at least 14 years old. This is a great opportunity for groups.

• Join the fire squad. Fire squad volunteers are willing to do whatever needs to be done to make the festival run smoothly. Qualifications: Enjoys variety! And you must be at least 21 years old. This is the activity best suited to individuals.

Learn more about the Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival >

They unloaded, sorted and boxed mountains of food donations. And they did it all with a smile. Thanks to more than 600 dedicated OFB volunteers, the 2005 National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive was a huge success.

Volunteers contributed more than 2,000 hours in one day to keep the food drive running smoothly.

The National Association of Letter Carriers food drive is the largest one-day food drive in Oregon and in the nation. This year the food drive resulted in more than 1.3 million pounds of food-- almost four percent more than last year.

"We couldn't have done it without our fabulous, hard-working volunteers," said Queta Gonzalez, OFB's volunteer program manager.

Enjoy gardening? Looking for a fun and active way to help fight hunger? Then Oregon Food Bank's Learning Gardens are the volunteer opportunity for you. Now is the perfect time to get involved.

Oregon Food Bank's Learning Gardens are beautiful, vibrant community growing spaces where people of all ages, experience and income levels come together to learn to grow food. Oregon Food Bank donates produce from the Learning Gardens to hunger-relief agencies, to OFB cooking demonstrations and to volunteers who work in the garden on a regular basis.

Garden volunteers help with basic garden maintenance, including weeding, watering harvesting and other tasks. Shifts are available at Oregon Food Bank's northeast Portland and Hillsboro locations on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon. OFB welcomes experienced and beginning gardeners.

OFB also hosts cooking demonstrations using garden produce and informative gardening workshops on topics ranging from container gardening to seed starting. See the workshop schedule >

Learn more about OFB's Learning Gardens >

Jeri Dobbs ticks off items on a list as he deftly pulls sauce pans, mixing bowls, paring knives and spatulas off storage shelves and places them in a sturdy, green rubber bin.

In another corner of OFB's kitchen, Dobbs' wife, Tricia, places flour, salt, baking soda, olive oil, vinegar, nutmeg-- all the staples a person needs to cook a basic meal-- into another rubber bin.

After retiring, the Dobbses looked for ways to continue to help others. They volunteer for a variety of programs. Once a week for the past three years, they have volunteered for OFB's Nutrition Education program.

Learn more about OFB's Nutrition Education program >

Oregon Food Bank is an affilate of America's Second Harvest-The Nation's Food Bank Network.