"I spent most of the day as a guide with one client. His name was Andrew. He was really flighty, and didn’t want to sit to fill in the forms for his eye exam or flu shot. He kept asking why I was there. I told him multiple times that I was there to show him love, to be his friend, because I care. He said everyone was so nice, and asked if I was doing community service or something. When I told him my answer, I don’t think he knew how to handle it, it didn’t seem to register. He called me his angel. He didn’t want to stand in line for lunch, and wasn’t going to stay. I told him we’d pick a table to sit at where we could see the movie that was on, then I’d stand in line for us and bring him his lunch. He said I’d make him cry... After he sat, I got the food and we had lunch together. After lunch, he went to watch the movie, and I went back to work. I believe that he felt the love I was giving.
Sometimes I feel like we don’t really see the difference that we are making, we don’t really even know if we are making a difference in some of those individual’s lives. But every once in a while, we get a glimpse, we get to see the impact that we are having. I think this was one of those cases. It’s a powerful reminder of just how important an impact we can have on those who don’t get a lot of love from society."
- Jamie F., Returning Volunteer
Register to Volunteer
Registration for the April 26th Homeless Connect will be opening soon.
Volunteer Opportunities
Homeless Connect relies on more than 350 volunteers to ensure the event is a success. Volunteers perform critical roles such as:
Registration/Exit Survey: Conducting intake and exit surveys, helping guests navigate the registration lines, running supplies when needed. The intake surveys are done electronically on tablets. Only volunteers who are comfortable working with a technology should apply for this position.
Greeters: Homeless Connect is about respect and inclusion. Greeters set the tone, shaking hands with guests as they arrive, ensuring they feel welcome, and directing them to registration. Greeters may also be asked to guard doorways/exits, help people to find restrooms, escort guests to registration, hand out water in line ups and provide general information about the event.
Guides: Once a guest has registered, a guide meets them and directs them to the services they need. A guide is a guest’s host, ensuring they receive the services and information they need. Guides walk with guests through the event and help them to find the services they are seeking. Guests may want a guide to stay with them for their entire stay at the event, or may not want a guide to help them at all.
Special Ops: Our special ops volunteers cover a variety of services offered at Homeless Connect. These services include:
Child Care Registration - registering families, taking pictures of the child and logging them into the system.
Hair - cleaning area, helping with line control, etc.
Clothing - organizing and sorting clothing, helping guests find what they need, etc. - this position is a early start position.
Coffee Station- assist the venue staff in serving coffee at the coffee stations
Meal Service - helping families and people with mobility issues get meals, line control, clearing plates, etc.
Photography Registration - taking names for and assisting with printing photos for pick up
Bag Check - taking in guest bags for secure storage, managing the bag storage area, ensuring bags are picked up at the end of the event.
Floaters: All of the above! Our floater volunteers assist each area and give much needed breaks to those volunteering for the entire day. As a floater volunteer, you can be asked to perform a number of tasks throughout the event. It is also important to consider that floaters do experience down time and are not busy every second of the event.
All volunteers work closely with our guests. This event is very hands on and volunteers are asked to do a lot of lifting, standing and moving. At this time, there are VERY limited positions available for those with mobility issues (ie: seated positions). Please make sure to specify if you have any issues with standing, heavy lifting or walking on your application form.
Drop offs and last minute cancellations create a major strain on resources at the event. Please be sure you are available for your shift on the day of the event.
Placements
Placements are given on a first come, first served basis to make sure it is fair for everyone involved. On your application, please be clear about where you would like to be placed, although we can’t guarantee your request we do our best to make it happen.
Time Commitment
All volunteers are asked to attend a pre-shift orientation session with their team leads and will also take a tour of the event floor before the shift begins.
All volunteers will need to be available for full event shifts (8:30am-3:30pm) due to our onsite needs. Depending on the amount of activity at the event, volunteers may be sent home early by their team leads.
Volunteer Groups
Unfortunately, we are unable to accept groups of volunteers for this event. Should you have a group of people that are interested in volunteering, please sign up as individuals and state on the volunteer application what group you are with. The volunteer coordinator will try to keep groups together, but there is no guarantee that groups will be placed together.
Youth Volunteers
Homeless Connect encourages youth to volunteer at the event. Youth 12-16 years of age must be accompanied 1:1 by a parent or guardian. All youth under the age of 18 must have a parent or guardian sign their waiver. Unfortunately due to liability reasons, we cannot have anyone under the age of 12 volunteer at the event.
Set Up/Tear Down
Homeless Connect takes a lot of human power to get the event set up and taken down in a timely manner. We will be asking for a specific number of volunteer to commit coming early to assist with set up starting at 7:00am. We will be asking Team Leads to have some of their assigned teams help with tear down at the event. This helps everyone get off site by 3:30pm.
For more information regarding volunteer opportunities at Homeward Trust, contact [email protected]