Involving Youth in the Community

By Maya Smith, VIP Leader at Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley, partner site of the Volunteer Center of the East Bay

The Volunteer Center of the East Bay has been helping non-profits in the East Bay fulfill their volunteer needs since 1955. Its core purpose is to encourage and support local volunteerism to benefit volunteers, nonprofit and public organizations, and society as a whole. In addition to hosting the AmeriCorps VIP program, they also coordinate the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). RSVP connects caring seniors age 55 and older with non-profit agencies that recognize senior volunteers provide invaluable service by sharing their lifetime of skills, talents and knowledge.

VIP Fellows volunteering during Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

While the Volunteer Center of the East Bay focuses on connecting seniors, VIP Fellow Maya Smith is looking to better incorporate youth with Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley. Although Habitat is a highly recognizable name, most people don’t know that they do a lot more than build houses. Habitat for Humanity’s vision is that “every person should have a decent, safe and affordable place to live.” They have realized that building new homes in a blighted neighborhood is a good start but in order for families to truly feel secure, changes need to be made on a macro level. Three years ago, Habitat launched their Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, a program designed to transform neighborhoods using a holistic approach. 

 Local youth joined Habitat on a Saturday to survey the 

neighborhood and help assess community needs.

Habitat coordinates with community residents, non-profits, faith communities, businesses and local governments to create and implement a shared vision of revitalization. Using this model, Habitat has been able to serve significantly more families and work with more volunteers. Neighborhood revitalization has proven to be a great way to involve youth volunteers. Because most of Habitat’s work takes place on a construction site, volunteer opportunities for youth under 16 are limited. Neighborhood revitalization events such as these have provided great opportunities for younger volunteers. Maya hopes to coordinate current Habitat clubs with these neighborhood revitalization events and connect youth from different communities across the territory that Habitat serves.

Habitat led elementary students to build an outdoor reading area next to their school library.

Among their revitalization projects, Habitat has partnered with an elementary school to create an outdoor reading area, cleaned neighborhood roadways as part of the Caltrans adopt-a-road program, and removed over 550 gallons of waste out of a local creek. Together, Habitat East Bay/Silicon Valley, neighborhood residents and local partners are changing the face of neighborhoods and enhancing the quality of life for all the families who live there.

Friends Outside Lend a Hand to Those from the Inside

By Emily Farver, VIP Fellow at Friends Outside and Jennifer Harman, VIP Leader at the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz

The Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz has 18 programs that empower young people, families, seniors, working professionals, and people with disabilities to be the difference in their community. Each year the Volunteer Center collaborates with over 500 partners, including fellow non-profits and businesses, to ensure our community organizations have the capacity to recruit and welcome new volunteers. AmeriCorps VIP Fellows are partnered through the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County with local non-profits to help develop volunteer programs, bringing resources to children and families within Santa Cruz County.

One of these programs is Friends Outside, where Emily Farver is the VIP Fellow this term.


The re-entry process for our clients is a difficult transition, exacerbated by little to
no support from the community.  Friends Outside acts as an advocate and resource referral service to support individuals who are incarcerated or have recently been released.

Our organization has noted that many post- released clients confront boredom, which is a primary factor that increases their likelihood to get rearrested.  Many clients have a challenging time obtaining employment, figuring out housing, and creating a healthy social network.  Due to these difficulties, Friends Outside needed to expand our programs to provide participants free courses on life skills to integrate into their daily interactions.

The development of the Life Skills Workshops has been most successful by involving staff, volunteers, and our clientele in the process.  As a result, we have built a program that reaches out to individuals in need and is taught solely by volunteers from our community who are professionals in their fields or have a strong passion for the topic. With the addition of this service, we have engaged a whole new set of volunteers into our organization.  Thus far, we have held four classes, from Financial Aid Assistance instructed by an advisor at Cabrillo College to Stress Reduction and Time Management taught by a licensed Social Worker (LMSW).  These classes have had a high rate of client attendance and have been well-received.

Turning A Story Into A Mission

By Teddy Hennes, VIP Fellow at Big Brother Big Sisters of Orange County and Maria Lemus, VIP Leader at OneOC

With volunteer, training, consulting and business services, we help Orange County’s nonprofits become as effective and efficient as they are passionate about their missions.

OneOC’s mission is accelerating nonprofit success.  Our services are fully integrated, and strengthened through partnership with other local service providers. Together, we work to accelerate the success of Orange County nonprofits, enabling them to reach their full potential.  OneOC’s nonprofit partner, Big Brother Big Sisters of Orange County, currently hosts AmeriCorps VIP Fellow, Teddy Hennes as their Community Outreach Coordinator. Here, Teddy shares the impact that a story can make for a nonprofit’s mission:

“Stories are transcendent in their ability to share experiences and provide relatable identities.  We see throughout our daily lives how the act of storytelling supersedes cultures and regions as the primary way to connect us as human beings.  The people we may never meet or speak with understand us through the stories we share and the stories that are shared about us.  As such, there is no greater tool in a recruiter's possession than the expression of his or her organization's volunteer stories.  

At Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County, we feature the stories of our volunteer "Bigs" and mentee "Littles" to motivate the thousands of potential Bigs in our county to become actual Bigs who will create new experiences with their Littles that will be shared with our community and beyond.  That is not to say that hard numbers are unimportant from a recruitment standpoint--they are--but many individuals are not sparked because there are over 125,000 single-parent families in the area who could use our service; they are driven by the tangible impact that our Big of the Year, Richard, has had on Julio and the bond of friendship that has developed throughout their decade-long match.  It is Richard and Julio's story that connects with people in a much more profound way than statistics could solely achieve. 

Every organization has a story to tell about its volunteers, and every volunteer is a microcosm of that story.  In many of your nonprofits, these people are the difference between upholding your mission and not, so engage your potential volunteers with those relatable experiences that inspired the volunteers that came before them.”

Appreciating Your Volunteers

By Kelsey Larsen, VIP Leader at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles

As the nonsectarian children’s literacy program of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, KOREH L.A. trains volunteer reading partners to work with kindergarten through fifth grade students attending our partner schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.  Our volunteers work one-on-one with children identified by their teachers as “reluctant readers” for one hour per week, helping enhance the students’ reading skills and foster a love of reading.  Four AmeriCorps VIP Fellows (including myself) work together to serve volunteers in different geographic regions of Los Angeles.  KOREH L.A. also has a program supported by a fifth VIP Fellow called the Teen Literacy Corps (TLC), which involves high school students in the process of increasing literacy skills in elementary school children. TLC partners public and private high school classrooms with nearby LAUSD elementary school classrooms, and trains the high school students for one-on-one reading mentorships. 

One of the most important and fun aspects of volunteer management is recognizing and appreciating your volunteers for all the amazing work they have done.  This year alone, KOREH L.A. had over 400 volunteers working with over 600 students in 60 schools, not including our TLC program.  Here’s some creative ways we’ve shown appreciation to volunteers. We hope you can use these tips to celebrate the work of your great partners!

KOREH L.A.’s Volunteer Appreciation Tips:

1. Have a culminating celebration.  Because we work with schools, the school calendar provides an easy structure for the “end” of the year’s volunteering.  However depending on your program, any time could work for this (December, or the end of the day’s events).  This year, KOREH L.A. held an end of year appreciation brunch for all of our KOREH volunteers, where they had a chance to come together as a group, eat some good food, celebrate, and be recognized for their service. Our volunteer brunch was a great sendoff to our 2012-2013 volunteers!

Welcoming volunteers to our Appreciation Brunch

2. Give shout outs!  Be sure to recognize both the individual and the group.  Individual recognition should be as personal as possible and doesn’t need to be expensive – at the brunch, our volunteers received certificates with their name and the name of the school where they volunteered, as well as a handwritten thank-you from the VIP Fellows.  During our Fall Enrichment Seminar, a festive and educational holiday gathering for our volunteers, we highlighted “great stories” volunteers had shared with us about their experiences. We also love to mention volunteers on Facebook and Twitter.   

KOREH L.A. Volunteer Nikki Turbin shares the KOREH L.A. love!

3. Let them share their stories and advice.  Since recognition comes not just from Volunteer Coordinators but from other volunteers, allow volunteers to be heard!  At all of our events, we provide time for volunteers to discuss their experiences with one another.  Often, it’s hard to get them quiet again!  Another way to connect volunteers is by asking volunteers to share their wisdom or experiences on a blog post.  If you have a volunteer who wants to share their expertise at an event, let them!  At her regional volunteer meeting, VIP Fellow Kaitlin Schluter reached out to a volunteer with a background in child development to share some tips with other volunteers, providing them with valuable guidance.   

 

VIP Fellow Kaitlin Schluter leads volunteers in discussion at her regional meeting

4. Give them something they can take away.  Before our volunteer brunch, we reached out to the LAUSD School Board President, who agreed to speak to our volunteers about education.    This year, each of the VIP Fellows also held a regional meeting for their volunteers, where they led a discussion on a topic that volunteers wanted to learn more about and provided them with ideas for new activities to do with their students.  Whether it is a speech from a respected individual on a topic they care about, or some extra resources, our volunteers appreciate the new ideas and information.

5. Recognize loyalty.  Give a special mention to volunteers who have been serving for a long time (In the case of our program, this is multiple years, however it could also mean coming to more than one service day, serving for one month, etc.).  At our brunch, we had volunteers raise their hands or stand up for the number of years they’ve been volunteering with us.  This encourages volunteers just beginning their service to keep coming back!