Fall 2009 Outreach Day - November 7th
Participant Registration
Last day to register is Wednesday, November 4th!
We will send placement confirmation emails on Thursday or Friday of this week.
Don't forget to sign up to be a site leader- a fun and painless way to gain some leadership experience!
All you need to do is get there a little earlier, gather your group, distribute name tags, and make sure that your group has everything they need. You will also be in charge of helping the driver with directions, take the lead at the service site, have the group fill out evaluations and sign a thank you card, and get everyone back to campus. Everything you need will be provided for you.
List of Volunteer Opportunities:
Forge for Families: 9:00-11:30 AM
Mission: The mission of The FORGE for Families is to enrich the spiritual, educational, vocational, and leadership development of inner city families through Christ-centered mentoring, bringing transforming growth to Houston’s Third Ward community.
Outreach Day Activity: November 7 is the final day of the FORGE football season. Volunteers will help with refreshments, registration, set/up and breakdown of field equipment. They will also help coaches organize and manage teams as well as help on the field.
Goodwill Industries of Houston: 1:00-3:30PM (FULL)
Mission: We provide training, education and career services to people with disabilities and other barriers to employment, improving the lives of individuals, families and communities.
Outreach Day Activity: Volunteers' duties include; receiving and sorting donations, processing and displaying merchandise, and representing Goodwill through customer service.
The Methodist Hospital: 9:00-11:30 AM, 1:00-3:30 PM
Mission: To provide high quality, cost-effective health care that delivers the best value to the people we serve in a spiritual environment of caring in association with internationally recognized teaching and research.
Outreach Day Activity: Volunteers will make Thanksgiving cards for the patients. The goal is to have a card for Thanksgiving for every patient in the hospital. If time allows we will visit some patients at the end of the project.
The Children's Assessment Center: 9:00-11:30 AM, 1:00-3:30 PM
Mission: Our mission is to provide a professional, compassionate and coordinated approach to the treatment of sexually abused children and their families and to serve as an advocate for all children in our community.
Outreach Day Activity: Volunteers will help us provide a safe environment for the kids in our Playroom by sanitizing and organizing the toys and donations. Volunteers will also help to decorate the Medical Clinic for the upcoming holiday season. Volunteers may work with the therapy department in reorganizing their area.
Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, with Rice for Peace: 1:00-3:30PM
Mission: The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP) is a grassroots Texas organization comprised of individuals and groups who work to end the death penalty in all cases, everywhere. We are an inclusive organization composed of human rights activists; death row prisoners and their families; crime victims and their families; persons working within the criminal justice system; persons opposed to capital punishment on religious and moral grounds; and other concerned citizens opposed to capital punishment.
Outreach Day Activity: Gloria Rubac, a community organizer, with the TCADP will provide information about the movement here in Texas to abolish the death penalty. Lee Greenwood, the mother of a son executed on death row, will also share her story. We'll be writing letters to send out to Texas state reps about the death penalty, and we'll learn how to call and meet with elected officials about the issue. Participants may also chose to set up a pen pal with death row prisoners.
Urban Harvest: 10:30-2:00PM (FULL)
Mission: Urban Harvest is a nonprofit organization that uses fruit, vegetable and habitat gardens to improve quality of life in the greater Houston area. These gardens serve to educate, strengthen community spirit, create therapeutic environments and provide food and income. We teach organic gardening techniques, help neighborhoods build successful community gardens, create outdoor classrooms at schools that teach core curricula, nutrition and respect for the environment, provide fresh, locally grown food, and encourage responsible land use. Our work benefits all of us by improving food, diet and health. It also builds engaging schools, neighborly communities, and valuable local businesses that together sustain and improve our environment.
Outreach Day Activity: The annual Harvest Celebration is on November 7 from 11 to 1:30 at the United Way Center 50 Waugh. It is a potluck dinner and awards ceremony. 4 volunteers will help manage the food that will be coming in. These volunteers will be taking the food from the gardeners as they come in and bringing it to the kitchen and then helping place the food on the tables. 2 additional volunteers will help distribute plants and bulbs at the end of the event to the attendees. The volunteers are welcome to eat at the event and they will have an opportunity to talk to the gardeners who are attending as well as learn quite a bit about Urban Harvest as an Organization.
Casa de Esperanza: 9:00-11:30 AM (FULL)
Mission: To be a safe place for children in crisis due to abuse, neglect, or the effects of HIV, Casa de Esperanza provides residential, medical, and psychological cave according to the needs of each child. Counseling is also available to the parents in appropriate situations.
Outreach Day Activity: Help clean the front-yard at the Casa School: weeding, raking, sweeping, trimming bushes, bagging trash, etc.
Rebuilding Together Houston: 9:00-3:30 PM (NOTE TIME CHANGE!)
Mission: Rebuilding Together Houston is a nonprofit organization working to preserve affordable home ownership and revitalize neighborhoods by providing home repair and renovation services free of charge to those in need.
Outreach Day Activity: Volunteers help to build wheelchair ramps. In doing this volunteers are able to help pour concrete for the foundation and nail the ramp together. All levels of experience are welcome.
*Sack Lunch will be provided.
Magnificat Houses, Inc- Loaves & Fishes: 10 AM - 1:30 PM (FULL)
Mission: MHI offers refuge and hope to the destitute by creating homes where people of different mental abilities, social backgrounds, religions, and cultures can live together in community. MHI provides a bridge back to the outside world and the confidence to cross it.
Outreach Day Activity: Serve food the homeless. Prepare the food & clean-up
*Sack Lunch will be provided.
Bering Omega Community Services: 9:00-11:30 AM
Mission: Bering Omega Community Services exists to nurture the well being and meet the physical emotional and spiritual needs of persons affected by HIV/AIDS through compassionate health care and social services.
Outreach Day Activity: Project participants will revitalize the exterior front of the Dental Clinic. Project will include general clean up, gardening, and possible work on the wheelchair ramp and deck.
Ten Thousand Villages: 1:00-3:30PM (FULL)
Mission: Ten Thousand Villages provides vital, fair income to people from developing countries by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America.
Outreach Day Activity: 1. Orientation to fair trade principals, artisans crafts, and history of Ten Thousand Villages 2. Possibility of a single activity or combination of: organizing store product, cleaning facilities or other project necessary for store function-TBD.
Houston Interfaith Worker Justice: 9:00-11:30 AM
Mission: Houston Interfaith Worker Justice Center is a safe space for workers to gather to learn about their labor rights and organize to improve conditions in their workplaces and for workers in Houston. The Center also mobilizes the religious community on issues and campaigns to improve wages, benefits and working conditions for low-wage workers.
Outreach Day Activity: Volunteers will come to the Worker Center for a short orientation to our organization and issues that low-wage workers and especially day laborers face on the job. Volunteers will then bring outreach materials and a snack to the workers. This will give volunteers an opportunity to interact with the workers and hear some stories. Volunteers will then return to the Worker Center to debrief.
DePelchin Children's Center: 1:00-3:30PM
Mission: We strengthen the lives of children by enhancing their mental health and physical well-being.
Outreach Day Activity: 1. Sports activities with the residential treatment children. 2. Board game/ Movie night with the residential treatment children. 3. Arts & Crafts day with the residential treatment children.
East Side Village Community Learning Center: 1:00-3:30PM (CANCELED)
Mission: To help individuals gain the basic education and computer skills necessary to improve their quality of life.
Outreach Day Activity: Paint touch up. Volunteers will be responsible for the following: 1. Masking the around the areas to prep for the paint job. 2. Paint specific areas that are eye sores 3. Clean Up after the job is finished 4. Painting will performed inside and outside the buildings.
* Required