Giving back over the holiday season: volunteer opportunities

Giving back over the holiday season: volunteer opportunities

Anabel Magers, Staffer

If giving back or helping out is near the top of your New Year’s resolution list, or even if you just need service hours, we have some places looking for your help. The best way to support your community is to donate you time; below are just a few places that would gladly accept.

The Manual community is holding a fanned food drive. If you are interested in donating, the J&C annex has boxes to place your items, as well as each math classroom. The collected items will be split equally and donated to a few local organizations.

The Kentucky Humane Society

The animals of the Kentucky Humane Society are always in need of help that you could offer. Aside from donating money or goods, here are a few ways that high schoolers can provide services to these animals.
The main volunteer opportunity encouraged for students at KHS is to create an At Home Pet Project — a care package for the shelter animals, specifically cats and dogs.
There is usually a waitlist for In-Shelter and Hands-on opportunities. After an application process, potential volunteers must attend orientation and an animal-handling class before interacting with animals.
The Kentucky Humane Society also has a Wish-List of items that the shelter would benefit from having. For every 10 items donated, a volunteer would earn one service hour.

Franciscan Kitchen

The Franciscan Kitchen is a soup kitchen that provides home cooked meals for the needy. Most all work is accomplished through the work of selfless volunteers.
This kitchen is always open to more volunteers, and has numerous positions for which anyone can apply.
The registration process to get involved in this kitchen is simple and takes almost no time.
Most who register work in the line either preparing or serving food to the homeless that come into the cafeteria.

Supplies Over Seas

Supplies Over Seas is a nonprofit organization based in Louisville that provides medical supplies that would otherwise be wasted to third-world countries.
The collection, sorting, and distribution of these surplus products create clinics medical centers that save lives threatened by lack of preventive supplies.
Volunteers at SOS sort surplus medical supplies into categories based on purpose and date, so that they can be sent out appropriately to communities in need.

Dare to Care

Thirteen of Kentuckiana’s counties rely upon the volunteers of Dare To Care everyday to provide meals for their residents.
There are many service opportunities attached to Dare to Care, the most common of which is working in the warehouse, where donated goods are stored prior to being distributed.
Dare to Care has five different positions in which one can volunteer, so any age or range ability can be accommodated.

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