VOLUNTEER VOICE NEWSLETTER July/Aug 2017

PEN PALS WRAP UP THE YEAR WITH CLASS PARTIES! This year Volunteer Connections coordinated 12 classes in

the Evergreen and Vancouver School districts to participate

in our popular “Pen Pal” program. We had 187 dedicated

adult volunteers paired with 225 5th grade students. That’s

one of the largest programs ever! The Pen Pal program has

been going on for over 20 years. Some of our current adult

volunteers were once 5th grade students who participated in

the program. We will begin recruiting for new Pen Pals in

September. To be a Pen Pal you agree to write one letter or

postcard per month during the

school year. The 5th grade student you write to will be

sending you a letter monthly too. In late May and early

June Pen Pals meet for the first and only time at a des-

sert party at the school.

This year five volunteers assisted us in coordinating the

exchange of letters between

adults and students. Our deepest

thanks to Amber Bushaw, Pat

Tucker, Barbara Pardee, Martha Hancock, and Marna Hop-

kins, and earlier in the year, Steve Smith.

We will begin recruiting for the next school year’s coordina-

tors and Pen Pals in late August and September. Watch your

emails and our Facebook page for announcements!

VISTA NEWS

Volunteers In Service to America

HOUSE MINISTRIES

FEATURED PARTNER: OPEN HOUSE MINISTRIES

The Volunteer Voice Newsletter is a publication of the Human Services Council

Volunteer Connections Program.

Volunteer Connections mission is to connect the wisdom, experience, and talents of volunteers

with opportunities to enrich the quality of life for themselves and their communities

Human Services Council, a 501 c 3 organization

Our mission is to improve people’s lives by connecting them to opportunities, information, and

services that respond to their individual and family needs.

Copyright@2017 Human Services Council-Volunteer Connections, All rights reserved.

You are receiving this newsletter because you are or have been a volunteer with one of our

programs, are a partner agency or signed up on our website or at an event.

To remove your name from the e-newsletter mailing list please email:

marciah@hsc-wa.org

For questions or comments contact rsvp@hsc-wa.org

“Grandma Rose” Funk meets

her Burnt Bridge Creek stu-

dent Imereta at the annual

party.

It doesn’t take long to find lots to

talk about after you’ve been

writing to each other all year!

Yummy homemade pie at

the Hearthwood Party!

VOLUNTEER MARY BERG KEEPS BUSY AT OPEN

Volunteer Connections has been gifted with many

talented and generous volunteers. We highlight just one

of those this month – Mary Berg. Mary is a retired 7th

grade teacher from Battle Ground and Evergreen School

districts. She started volunteering at Open House

Ministries three years ago and is very dedicated to her

duties at the agency. Among the items donated to Open

House Ministries are greeting cards and books. The

cards and envelopes may not be together and need a

little loving care! She

separates the envelopes and

cards and starts matching the

cards with the right size of envelope. When

completed, the cards are a very popular sales item in

the thrift store. She examines each one of the books

and only those that are in perfect condition go on

their shelves. The remainder are given to other

outlets including Powell’s Book Store. She spends

two days a week in the antiques room, pricing items,

assisting customers, and helping to display the

antiques in a beautiful manner. She is a professed

outdoor person; this includes yard work in addition to hiking, biking and other

activities. Besides her husband, her family includes three daughters, one son

and six grandchildren. Mary feels she is blessed because her work at Open

House allows her to help other people and give back to the community. Thank

you, Mary!

VISTA, a program of the Corporation for National and

Community Service, currently has four serving mem-

bers in SW Washington. Jade Dudley is working with

Southwest Washington Elder Abuse Prevention Coali-

tion doing a fantastic job in community outreach. She

has been networking all over the area and giving

presentations on recognizing the signs of elder abuse

and what to do when you see it. Recently Jade repre-

sented SWEAP at the “Longest Day”, an Alzheimer’s

Awareness event.

VISTA Piper Krabbenhoft is very busy this time of year

at the Clark County Food Bank. She has been recruit-

ing volunteers to help in a variety of tasks from tabling at the Farmer’s Market, to

activities at the Heritage Farm. She’s been

busy making community connections too, for

instance she was shopping at an early spring

Farmer’s Market and struck up a conversation

with a woman who offered to get the 350 cab-

bage plants needed for the Heritage Farm

started in her greenhouse. This new volunteer

is recruiting other friends with backyard green-

houses to do some additional plant starting for

next year too!

VISTA Ryan Gilson at Second Step Housing has been working hard on some

basic infrastructure needs for his agency. He recently restructured the agency’s

network drive reducing the top level items on the file system from 210 down to 5!

In addition, he’s been recruiting new partners and volunteers to help with events

like the recent “Run Like A Girl” which raised a record amount of donations this

year!

Charles Marentes, our newest VISTA serving at Vancouver Public Schools has

been spending much of his time getting up to speed on the two years of project

development done by his predecessor, Danielle Hellums. Charles is currently

meeting with VPS staff /faculty to determine how they are using the research

done so far and how they are implementing programs to address chronic absen-

teeism. The majority of his work will be to insure that the program is implement-

ed district wide and staff/faculty are trained to administer the techniques.

Jade Dudley at the “Longest

Day” event June 21.

NOW RECRUITING FOR NEXT SCHOOL YEAR!

Lunch Buddies, Tutors, and Mentors

It seems like school just got out! In fact it did, as the schools

had an extra long year to make up for all the snow days we had

last winter! School will start up again soon. One of our most

critical RSVP assignments is the Lunch Buddy program. All of

the schools in both districts need caring adult volunteers who

can be positive role models in the lives of children experiencing

changes at home, difficulty in school, or who just need a caring adult in their

lives. Buddies typically meet with their students at the school, once a week for

about 45 minutes. You may eat lunch with the student or play a board game, do

a craft, read or just talk.

Both Evergreen and Vancouver School District will be in need of literacy and

math tutors to work with various grade levels. Most tutors work one-on-one at

the school with a child.

The Salvation Army “Say Klub” serves children

in grades 1-5 who attend Marrion or Fircrest

Elementary Schools. “Say Klub” is held Tues-

day through Friday during the school year. Vol-

unteers have a variety of tasks including riding

along to pick kids up from school, reading to

kids, helping with homework and projects, and

tutoring in literacy.

Each of these activities is a volunteer position that collets “outcome” based data.

If you are an RSVP volunteer (55 and over) you will be asked to fill out a simple

survey at the beginning and end of the school year that confirms the number of

students you’ve worked with, and asks for a gauge of student improvement dur-

ing your time with them.

If helping kids in these ways sounds like fun, please contact us now as we gear

up for the coming school season. Contact Jo at jo@hsc-wa.org, or call 360-735-

3690.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the most famous early Ameri-

cans, is also known as the Founding Father of Ameri-

can volunteerism. He gathered volunteers to sweep the

streets of Philadelphia, organized the nation’s first vol-

unteer fire department, established a voluntary militia

and organized a philosophical society. His philosophy

was “one served not to save their soul, but to build a

strong society.”

Not sure how to get started as a volunteer? Interested

in finding a new volunteer opportunity? Do you know of

a non-profit that needs help recruiting volunteers?

Contact Volunteer Connections and we’ll help you find your volunteer niche or

help that non-profit find the help it needs. Contact Marcia at 360-735-6393 or

Jo at 360-735-3690.

THE FOUNDING FATHER OF AMERICAN VOLUNTEERISM

WE LOVE OUR “LIKES” BUT WE NEED SOME

SHARES!

Thanks to everyone who “likes” our Facebook page! We’d appreciate it if you

would “share” our page too, so more people learn about the many ways to

volunteer in Clark County!

WEBSITE UPGRADE: THINGS LOOK DIFFERENT!

If you’ve visited our website recently, you may

have noticed that things look different! Over

the last few months our parent agency, The

Human Services Council, underwent a mas-

sive website overhaul to accommodate a new

ride scheduling portal.

This necessitated Volunteer Connections re-

designing our site as well. The biggest

change is the location of a couple of key tabs many of you use. You’ll notice the

search bar looks different. Across the top you’ll see “Home” “Volunteer”

“Americorps VISTA”, “Current Volunteers” “Partnerships” and “Volunteer Center

News”. If you access the website on your phone or tablet the above screen shot

may “shrink” the tab selections. Not to worry, you can still find what you need.

As the above diagram indicates, if you only see the “Home” and “Partnerships”

tab, click on the little arrow next to Partnerships and

that will take you to Current Volunteers, where you’ll

find “enter hours”.

To log on to report your hours or to send us a mes-

sage select the tab “Current Volunteers”. Click on

the small down arrow you see next to the words

Current Volunteers. That will bring up two selec-

tions: Enter Hours and Contact Us. Select Enter

Hours and you should go to the regular log in

screen you’ve always used. If this does not happen,

please let us know by sending an email telling us

what happened. You may also send your hours via email if you are unable to ac-

cess your usual reporting page. (jo@hsc-wa.org).

If you get a Fatal Error message you will need to refresh your web browser as it is

trying to connect to the old website. Consult your help option for your computer to

find out how to do a refresh. You should see a page that has the Interstate Bridge

and the Volunteer Connections logo. The new site looks like the screenshot at

the beginning of this article.

Open House Ministries is a faith-based community

organization helping homeless families by provid-

ing shelter and intervention through Christ-

centered, life changing programs.

Second Hand Solutions, where our featured volun-

teer shares her time, is located at 915 West 13th

Street in Vancouver. Common Grounds Coffee

Shop is located in the thrift

store with Wheel Deals

Bicycle shop next door.

Volunteers are critical to the mission of Open House

Ministries as their contribution of time and talent allows

OHM to provide the highest level of programming so

the families served by the Ministry become self-

sufficient contributing members of the community.

OHM has created an environment for volunteers where

they are treated as a partner and their involvement is

vital to a strong community. Currently, about 150 vol-

unteers support OHM staff on a monthly basis.

According to Volunteer Resources Coordinator, Clau-

dia Merritt, they seek people with skills and a passion

and respect for the mission and goals of OHM and who will be an appropriate

fit for the open positions. Visit their website at sheltered.org to learn more.

Right now they are searching for Receptionist volunteers. You’ll answer the

phones, receive donations, direct the public and residents, and other light

clerical duties. Contact Volunteer Connections for more details about this po-

sition, 360-735-3690.

Chaplain Mark Roskam

guides the ministry of OHM

and enjoys spending time in

the bike shop.

Second Hand Solutions Thrift store

full of treasures and a great coffee

shop too!

SENIOR MESSENGER WANTS YOUR STORIES! AND SO

DO WE!

The Senior Messenger introduced a new column in

February called “Your Encore”. The Encore column

is an opportunity for Messenger readers to share their

personal experiences and tap the skills and experi-

ences of boomers and seniors to improve communi-

ties. The intent is for readers to write the column on

such topics as arts and culture, environments, eco-

nomic and community development and other subjects of interest to the read-

ers of Senior Messenger. You can submit your Encore stories of 650 words

of less by the 10th of each month to news@seniormessenger.org or by regu-

lar mail to The Messenger, Your Encore, 400 E. Evergreen Blvd #111 Van-

couver 98660.

We at Volunteer Connections would love your stories too, especially about

volunteering. As many of you know, we receive a large portion of our funds

from the Corporation for National and Community Service through the Re-

tired and Senior Volunteer Program, RSVP. Sharing a story about your vol-

unteer service goes along way in allowing us to show the value of the work

done by volunteers. If you’d like to share a story about your volunteer work

please do so (and you don’t have to be an RSVP volunteer only). Just send

it to Marcia, our Project Coordinator email her at marciah@hsc-wa.org.

Piper gives many tours to partners like

these interns from the Murdoch Trust.