I'm all for volunteering, however...

I ate at Chik-fil-A. Once. At Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. 

And I have to say that the chicken sandwich was pretty darned good.

But I don't patronize them on general principles (and fat avoidance), so I haven't been to the one that opened in January, just a quick walk away from my home. No big sacrifice on my part. Ask me again if I'm stuck in DFW at some point. 

(Chik-fil-A, by the way, gave in to pressure a few years back and stopped making corporate donations to anti-gay organizations. But the chairman and co-owner, Dan Cathy, continues to support radical conservative organizations.)

Chik-fil-A gets along just fine without my patronage, of course. It's extremely popular and lucrative, the Cathy family worth billions.

The company runs on a version of franchising - low entry fee for the operators, but Chik-fil-A largely retains ownership. And one of their franchisees, a store in North Carolina, has come up with an interesting new approach. Rather than hire employees, the outfit went looking for volunteers to staff their drive-through:

“We are looking for volunteers for our new Drive Thru Express!” the store in Hendersonville, N.C., wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday that has since been deleted. “Earn 5 free entrees per shift (1 hr) worked. Message us for details.” (Source: WaPo)

Yikes!  

I'm all for volunteering. And sometimes it's true that having volunteers means that an organization doesn't have to pay staff to perform some tasks, especially when the tasks aren't "nice to haves" but are at the core of the organization. 

I volunteer with two organizations. One is "all volunteer", with all the chaos and meshugas that comes with that claim. But being "all volunteer" does mean that the money donated goes to support our mission (helping families experiencing homelessness, especially during the holidays), not to the payroll. (It's also a key element of our fundraising.)

My other volunteer gig is with a large homeless shelter. Volunteers do a lot of different things there, but we're especially central to the organization's being able to feed hundreds of hungry folks every day. When we're short on volunteers, staff members pitch in, spending their lunch break serving our guests. A lot of the other things that volunteers see to are "nice to haves" (a poetry workshop, a sing-along...) that support the organization's mission, but much of the work taking care of routine tasks the free the paid staff up to have deeper interactions with the guests. Some of it's pretty pedestrian stuff. For example: on Thursdays, I sign people up for showers and hand out soap and toothpaste. This gives the Resource Center manager more time to mingle with the guests and figure out what we can do to improve their lives.

And sometimes the volunteers let the organization do more better. For instance, volunteers help with workforce development by conducting practice job interviews. 

What the two places I volunteer with have in common is that THEY ARE NON-PROFITS. 

Volunteering my time with a profit-making organization? N.F.W. 

Oh, I suppose if I were a big theater buff I wouldn't mind being an usher if I got to see the show for free. 

But free labor for the likes of Chik-fil-A? Once again: N.F.W.

The store has been met with backlash for appearing to ignore the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the long-standing federal law that states how employers must pay their employees for all of the hours they work. The Hendersonville location, which is run by a franchisee, responded to the online blowback by saying the “volunteer-based opportunity” was intended for people who “think it’s a good fit for them,” and argued it was different from full- or part-time employment.

“We’ve had multiple people sign up and enjoy doing and have done it multiple times,” the store wrote in a separate post. “People who sign up for this chose it voluntarily.”

People "chose it voluntarily?"

Well, duh. I can't imagine that even in the backwoods of North Carolina, a fast food joint could dragoon people off the street to serve chicken sandwiches in the drive-through. The store has defended their operation thus:

“...there’s an expression of desire from the community to be more a part of what that brand is doing,” said the manager, Ryan, who declined to give his last name to the media outlet. “We get people all the time that want to be a part of what we’re doing. This is designed to be an opportunity for that.”

 This I just do not get. 

Admittedly, I just paid a lot of money - many Chik-fil-A sammies worth - for Springsteen tickets, but I really do not get someone who identifies with a profit making company and wants "to be more a part of what that brand is doing."

I do identify with St. Francis House. I often wear my apron - a gift when I hit the 1,000 hours volunteering level. And I have a collection of Christmas in the City tee-shirts accrued over the years that I wear when I'm out walking, and often when I'm working in the St. Francis House kitchen.

And on the profit-making side, god knows I've got enough Red Sox caps around here - enough so that I know that they can afford to sign Xander Bogaerts and/or Raffy Devers. 

So, yes, I guess I'm someone who identifies with a brand.

But working for "free", in exchange for five sandwiches, at a Chik-fil-A. That's a hella big NO.

The Hendersonville volunteer "will work for food" program has ended. And they're hiring. 

Until this time, the Hendersonville Chik-fil-A was "perhaps best known for employing Madison Cawthorn as a cashier, years before he was elected as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives."

Having lost his primary, come January, Cawthorn will be looking for work. Chik-fil-A pays $19 an hour. Go for it, Madison! I understand that, if you work for a Chik-fil-A, you even get lunch...