Connecting With The Homeless

February 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
A homeless man in Paris

Image via Wikipedia

A great way to connect with your local homeless population is through volunteering. Many people have a desire to help the homeless but do not feel comfortable doing so by approaching a homeless person. This is perfectly understandable and wise practice to be sure. Volunteering at a local establishment which works with the homeless is a surefire way to get the access you desire but safely. Here are a few ways you can volunteer and help the local homeless.

1.) Local Shelter- Here you can volunteer time to help feed the homeless as well as help with setting up cots and other things that need to be done to keep a shelter going. A shelter provides great access in the event you want to hear people’s stories of how they became homeless as well as what their experience has taught them. Homeless children sometimes have known no other way of life and are in need of solid role models.

2.) Needle Exchanges- Dirty needles that pass deadly diseases are a common cause of death among the homeless population. You can help decrease this population by handing out clean needles to homeless people who request them. You may also be able to convince some who don’t know if they care about the cleanliness of their needles to make an exchange.

3.) Clothes Handouts- Homeless people generally have very little access to basic food, shelter, and clothing needs. In fact, clothes are often outgrown and appropriate attire is absent over long grueling winters. While many people donate goods, and that is great, people are still needed to hand these donations out to the needing public.

Helping the homeless is a great way to hear true stories of tragedy. It is often the most unfortunate of circumstances which leads someone to have to live on the streets. Maybe you can help them and help you to feel great about yourself.

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Where There Is A Need There Is A way

December 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The strength in any community is its people. A strong community is often driven by volunteer efforts. Supporting local volunteers is an integral part of any community. That all sounds nice, but how do we implement a successful volunteer project? How do we take what is little more than good intentions and turn them into useful projects that benefit members of a community that are in need?

Volunteerism must start with the desire to help or to aid. The need can be anything from homeless women to illiterate adults, but recognizing the need is often the spark that determines the form a volunteer effort will take. Once a need has been recognized, one must next determine how to best meet that need. Is it better to set up shelters for the homeless as a temporary measure or are volunteer efforts better suited at helped homeless people become productive members of that society? Meeting the need will help to determine who can best help meet that need?

Finding volunteers is often the most difficult part of any volunteer effort. By first determining how to meet a particular need, you may find it easier to locate specific community volunteers to help meet that need. “Advertising” your need for volunteers may sound crass and expensive, but remember that advertising can be viewed as a volunteer effort as well, so ask local businesses, churches and newspapers to donate advertising to your cause.

Volunteer efforts are one of the most effective ways to develop a strong sense of community. Helping those less fortunate, filling a need or cultivating our youth are honorable efforts and should be applauded. The most amazing thing is that most volunteers don’t want to applause or the press, they simply want to help.

If you are interested in developing a volunteer project for your community start by finding what is needed, how to best fill that need will soon follow.

Filed Under: Community, Society, Volunteering Tagged With: , ,

Collective Volunteers

December 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Developing an all encompassing volunteer plan is a big undertaking. Many communities opt to tackle problems one by one, but some are turning to a large format volunteer program to better assist their residents. A great example of this is volunteering for literacy.

Almost all cities and communities across the nation tackle literacy in their own way. Some offer adult tutoring, others focus their efforts on English as a Second Language and others focus on early childhood development. While all of these efforts can play a role in increasing literacy, perhaps a better method is to create a community wide literacy volunteer program to better serve the needs of the community as a whole.

Such a program would naturally be made of distinct volunteer efforts, each aimed at assisting a particular need or group of people. Adults would still have access to assistance with learning to read and very young children would still have story time, only the manner in which the effort is focused would be changed.

A book drive is a wonderful thing, but when held in conjunction with other literacy efforts, it becomes even more powerful. Developing an all inclusive plan for volunteers may be the most effective way to manage volunteer efforts.

The example above, literacy, represents a large problem across our country and makes a good example of how to combine efforts. This concept can easily be used to fill almost any community need. Homelessness, poverty, immunizations, senior support, health and wellness drives almost any need that requires a volunteer force can benefit from a plan that focuses on the entire problem not simply a system.

Volunteering offers everyone a benefit. Communities, volunteers and those they help all get a little something out of the bargain. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more people would simply pitch in and help out in their community?

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Ways to Find Volunteer Opportunities in Your Local Area

October 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment
SACRAMENTO, CA - MARCH 23: Rudy Hernandez of t...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

If you’re looking for volunteer work, you can rest assured that there are plenty of options available in your local area. From homeless shelters to nursing homes, a multitude of places allow people to volunteer their time to help those less fortunate than them. In addition to personal satisfaction, volunteer work can benefit high school students looking to boost up their college entry application, or even adults looking for a new job. you’d be surprised how good volunteer work looks on an application or resume.

Contacting your local nursing homes is an easy way to find volunteer work. Nursing homes often have people come in to help with resident activities, to spend time with residents or even read stories to them. These jobs may seem like non-essential work, but the people who live in the nursing home often look forward to their recreational time, and you may find that you meet a few new friends.

Most mid to large cities have soup kitchens or food banks that take volunteers. In a soup kitchen you’d be responsible for serving meals to homeless people, washing dishes or even cooking. Food banks supply low income families with food each month, and they are always looking for people to assist them with handing out groceries. Food banks are typically located in churches, so if you want to volunteer you can simply start calling churches until you find one that needs help.

Most cities also have some sort of big brother/big sister program that caters to children who’ve had rough lives. These could be children who come from low income families or those whose parents don’t have enough time to spend with them. It’s the communities way of helping to keep kids off the streets and on the right path. As a volunteer you’d be responsible for spending time with the child assigned to you, and doing wholesome activities that a kid their age would enjoy.

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Filed Under: Society, Volunteering Tagged With: , , , , , , ,