Creating Opportunities for High School Volunteers

By Briana Keating, VIP Fellow at Catholic Charities of Santa Rosa

Catholic Charities serves people in need through three program areas: caring for seniors, counseling immigrants, and challenging poverty. As the VIP Fellow and sole member of the Volunteer Department at Catholic Charities, I spend much of my time fielding calls from people, many of whom are youth, interested in volunteering in one of these program areas. One of the challenges I have faced is trying to find a place for high school volunteers to fit. Youth can be great volunteers because of their enthusiasm, desire to help others, and ability to learn new things quickly.  Unfortunately, we do not have enough volunteer opportunities to accommodate every interested youth and we frequently encounter volunteers who just want to fulfill their required volunteer hours then never show up again.

In an attempt to come up with a solution to this challenge, my supervisor and I have developed a new volunteer program at Catholic Charities called the Caritas Corps, set to launch this August. Named for the Latin word for charity, the Caritas Corps will be a youth service corps for high school students. Youth will have the opportunity to volunteer in one of our many programs: from tutoring children at our homeless shelter to building food boxes for the Rural Food Project to making phone calls to seniors living alone.

High school students and community partners joined VIP Fellow, Briana Keating (right) for a presentation and feedback session on the Caritas Corps.

Interested youth will have to go through an application process which includes a written statement of intent and an interview. The hope is that the interview process will help us to pair volunteers with programs that best fit their skills and interests. Volunteers will be asked to make a commitment to one program over the course of the school year, allowing them to make greater impacts and greater connections with staff and the clients we serve. I will also be coordinating monthly service days where teens can volunteer and gain service hours without making a long-term commitment.

The Caritas Corps was developed to provide more than just a volunteer opportunity, but also as a way to encourage and develop social awareness in youth through education and social events. We want to help develop socially minded individuals who will grow up with a passion for service and who will continue to give back to their communities. Additionally, this is a really exciting new program for Catholic Charities as it will allow us to utilize youth volunteers to their full potential and help us to fill a huge need for volunteers in our agency.