What Volunteers Do

IW volunteers do lots of different things and serve an integral part of our mission to reconnect our neighbors experiencing homelessness with the community at large. Creating these connections uplifts our community and helps foster a sense of inclusion and belonging. While it may sound simple, having volunteers at our locations to help staff with basic tasks can go a long way towards creating a sense of dignity and restoring agency. Activities and tasks you might help with include:

• Serving and distributing meals to our guests

• Assisting staff with basic tasks like cleaning showers or tackling house laundry

• Playing board games or cards with guests

• Sorting donations and organizing our on-site clothing closet

• Helping out with the community garden

• Conversing with guests to foster a sense of community inclusion

• Facilitating art projects or other creative activities

• Facilitating structured activities like movie night, bingo night, chess tournaments, etc.*

• Helping out with hazardous weather event (Code Blue/Code Red) set up, breakdown, and  monitoring

• We are also very open to fun or creative ideas that you’d like to offer to our guests!

*We kindly ask that you coordinate and plan ahead of time with an on-site manager for structured events or group activities, so that we can properly support your idea.