by Laura Grevas
You would never know it now, but Sylvia Cook did take a little bit of convincing to join The Open Door’s volunteer team.
Then-board member Pete Mallinger approached her at their shared faith
community, St. Thomas Beckett Catholic Church in Eagan.
“My initial response was ‘No, I’m too busy’” she laughs.
But he persisted, and Cook agreed to attend a volunteer orientation. She began helping with a weekly evening shift.
Now, more than a decade later, she is among The Open Door’s most respected and trusted volunteers. She has served as a client attendant helping families at intake, but she also helped pack the bus for mobile pantries. When The Open Door opened its warehouse in Apple Valley, she helped set that up, too.
These days, Cook is a Greeter. She’s volunteered nearly every Thursday evening for nine years now. In years past, staff even trusted her to run the Pantry in their absence. She seen the organization grow over the years.
“There’s a lot more volunteers. There’s a lot more work. There’s a lot more that they’re processing on a daily basis.”
One thing that hasn’t changed is the need, which is greater now than ever. Even with an ever-increasing number of Mobile sites, transportation is a massive challenge for many who use the Pantry, says Cook. Some clients lack the funds to even get home after their food appointments. Still, she finds the client-facing work to be immensely rewarding.
“Almost weekly, there’s several people who call in and they’re just so in need. And then when you tell them that you know they can come here and get food that they just start crying,” she shares. “So there are a lot of those very emotional interactions with clients.”
Cook is actually somewhat of a career helper, not only in her 44 years as a nurse, but in her other volunteer efforts. She is now the food shelf coordinator at St. Thomas Beckett, in charge of delivering food collected from parishioners to The Open Door. She has served meals for Loaves and Fishes in Bloomington, and at soup kitchens in California.
“I lived in California for 10 years,” she explains. “I was a young nurse out there and I volunteered and I saw people that went to the soup kitchens out there. A lot of homelessness and a lot of poverty in and a lot of mental illness in California. So I had a little bit of an idea of what a soup kitchen was like.”
When she’s not busy feeding people, Cook enjoys a variety of hobbies. She loves Vikings football, trying out new restaurants, Italian cuisine and church activities. As one of eight siblings, she enjoys spending time with family. As a longtime Open Door volunteer, she’s recruited a few friends to her cause, too.
“I have friends of mine that have come here that are current volunteers. So I’ve encouraged other people to come in … I tell them to come and try it. That it’s a worthwhile cause. And that you can pick a shift to fit into your schedule,” she says.
Though her work as a surgical nurse has her up before 4 a.m., Cook says she’s often one of the last ones out at night. She even cleans the volunteer lounge during every shift—if you’ve seen notes from the ‘Refrigerator Fairy,’ that’s her. All told, it’s a lot of work – but it doesn’t seem she’d have it any other way.
“For me it’s a very rewarding experience to volunteer here and to be committed to every single week doing a shift. Knowing that this is a commitment that I’ve made, and I continue to do it.”
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