FAMILY LINKS

Parent and Child Guidance Center was founded in 1957 to focus on aiding individuals and their families through the trials of mental retardation and mental health. The Whale’s Tale was founded in 1970 to address substance abuse, early intervention/prevention, crisis intervention, residential treatment, and more. Both of these human service agencies labored independently of each other in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but each of them were committed to improving the lives of children and their families.

Family Links was formed to join the former Parent and Child Guidance Center and The Whale’s Tale in order to offer a comprehensive continuum of human services in the areas of prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation for children, families and individuals in greater western Pennsylvania. Family Links served include mental health, substance abuse, early intervention/prevention, mental retardation, crisis intervention, emergency shelter, residential treatments, independent living, housing assistance, and community support services.

Family Links Goals are to deliver quality family support and enrichment in a wide range of services in a seamless manner. They help clients become productive and contribute to members of the community. They return clients to a more wholesome, safe and loving family environment. This organization merged the two staffs numbering over 500, and they recruited to find outstanding candidates to head the new division of Best Practice and the reconfigured division of Communications.

The operations of the two entities have emerged along with the Board of Directors. Family Links is now a future-oriented, mission-driven group determined to set the organization on a course toward transforming the world for the less fortunate. The agency is now charged with attaining an even greater capacity through training, consultation, and continuous quality improvement activities. Over 3000 human service professionals have attended their training programs.

Family Links is a vital service in Pennsylvania. They offer an unparalleled array of services that assist the homeless, destitute, the abused and exploited, as well as the mentally challenged and chemically dependent. The agencies services are designed to aid the clients and the rest of their family. They help all individuals become healthy functioning adults.

RAY LOVELY

Ray Lovely’s enthusiasm and innovation have led to the expansion of Olympic National Park’s Volunteer-In-Parks (VIP) program. He greatly expanded the use of volunteers to assist in the construction and maintenance of visitor facilities, such as the new Living Forest Trail near the Olympic National Park Visitor Center in Port Angeles, Washington.

The Living Forest trail is a 1/3-mile loop trail that passes through second growth forest and wetland setting with views to nearby Peabody Creek. These types of facilities serve to both educate visitors about the environment and the need to conserve and restore natural and cultural resources. The ½-mile Moments in Time Trail at Lake Crescent is another accessible loop trail that Lovely and his volunteers helped make possible. Each year thousands of elementary school children enjoy these trails as part of guided educational walks.

Lovely has been sensitive to community needs by working with high school-age volunteers seeking to gain skills by performing community service by working on projects within Olympic National Park that are within and near the City of Port Angeles. Each year, Lovely is asked to work with local high school students in their efforts to perform community service projects for various reasons, such as meeting requirements for high school graduation or becoming an Eagle Scout. He has also reached out to retirees who are interested in performing community service projects and want to work on projects within Olympic National Park.

Ray Lovely has also been innovative in that he recognized the potential of utilizing the many skills of retired residents to assist in ongoing maintenance of certain of the park’s visitor facilities. Due to a lack of human resources to coordinate these and other volunteers, the potential for working with retirees was not being realized. The volunteers now play a critical role for the park’s Division of Maintenance to help to keep the park’s visitors facilities in good condition.

Lovely’s desire to expand the use of volunteers has enabled the park to utilize the services of certain volunteer groups requiring more logistical support than could be provided by park staff. An example is the use of the Landmark Volunteers, which is a group of high school-aged volunteers from around the country who have assisted in completing the Living Forest Trail in addition to other trail construction projects. For the last three years, a group of 12 Landmark Volunteers and their leader have traveled to Port Angeles to perform work for two weeks on a trail project within the park. The group stays at a nearby church where they also make their meals. Lovely has provided logistical coordination and worked directly with the students on the projects.

Ray Lovely has worked as a volunteer at Olympic National Park for nearly 10 years and has donated approximately 4,500 hours of time to the Volunteer-In-Parks program.

CHARLENE CLARK

Charlene Clark, pet therapist, and “Buster Brown,” a very special pet therapy dog, have been volunteering at New Hampshire Hospital since 1994. They work at a psychiatric hospital with 144 adult beds, 41 elder care beds and a 22-bed children and adolescent unit. Studies have found some persons with mental illness feel disconnected from everything and everyone around them. Pet therapy is one of the many therapeutic interventions that has a long history of benefit to persons with mental illness and is used in conjunction with other treatment modalities.

Clark and Buster visit with persons suffering from depression, personality disorders, schizophrenia, Bi-polar disorder, dementia, neuropsychotic disorders and other forms of mental illness. Clark uses Buster to establish a patient-therapist relationship that in some instances acts as a springboard to the patient accepting ensuing treatment strategies. In practice, Buster functions as an addition to Clark. She uses Buster Brown to actively engage patients in meaningful and therapeutic situations. Together, they stimulate responses, which may not be shown in relationships to humans alone. Patients express feelings without fear of rejection or unattainable expectations as Buster accepts them unconditionally and affectionately.

Clark is a very positive individual and is always willing to share pet stories during her visits and also actively teaches patients the importance of responsible pet ownership and how to care for them. Clark and Buster have a positive effect on the lives they touch as demonstrated by the responses that are elicited from their visits. Patients ask to hold Buster and pat him as they talk to Clark about animals they have had throughout their lives. Eyes sparkle and smiles form as Buster wags his tail and gives dog kisses in response to the attention he is getting. These interactions help patients maintain a sense of identity and promote their overall well-being.

Clark balances many commitments and other volunteer efforts to make a difference in the lives of people with mental illness. Many citizens still have an overwhelming fear of people who have a mental illness. However, Clark, through her volunteer service, is committed to building a better understanding about mental illness throughout her community to dispel these fears.

GRETA MENKE

In 1999 Women and Children’s Horizons, Inc. expanded its Law Enforcement Advocacy Program (LEAP) in order to support victims at the scenes of domestic abuse crimes throughout Kenosha County. All law enforcement agents in Kenosha County were trained in aspects of domestic abuse and the services provided by Women and Children’s Horizons. Each time an officer responds to a domestic abuse crime, he or she offers to call a LEAP Advocate to assist the victim. An advocate then responds to the scene to offer support, information and a personal plan to help the victim stay safe during a frightening time.

While at the scene of the domestic abuse crime, the advocate’s role is to educate, support and counsel the victim on the cycle of abuse, power and control issues, the effects of witnessing domestic abuse on children (as appropriate), options for the victim, and safety planning. Volunteers have an opportunity to use their natural skills and talents to assist and empower others while gaining valuable experience for their own futures. Volunteers were aggressively recruited throughout the county and to the dismay of the program director, not many individuals wanted to put themselves at a crime scene.

Greta Menke is one of those volunteers, however, who took the risk. She had the empathy and courage necessary to satisfy a growing need. Staff of Women and Children’s Horizons covered the city, but they had only a few volunteers to cover the rest of the county that included small towns and rural areas. Due to the limited volunteers, Menke ended up on call for LEAP nearly every day.

She built a special relationship with the law enforcement officers in the county and many victims had the opportunity to work with her. The expansion of Women and Children’s Horizons LEAP program into the county would not have been possible without Menke’s help and many rural victims of domestic abuse would have been denied an empathetic ear.

Menke’s understanding of the issues surrounding domestic abuse and her willingness to be on call nearly every day endears her to the staff and board of directors of Women and Children’s Horizons, local law enforcement officers and the victims with whom she has contact.

PAT MORGAN

When Pat Morgan retired from Eastern Illinois University, where she had worked in the Print Center for more than 15 years, she knew that she would need to keep busy. Having been a member of her local VFW Auxiliary for more than 40 years, she began to volunteer her services almost immediately. Over the course of the next few years, Morgan devoted her seemingly tireless energies to making a difference – not only for veterans – but also in the lives of anyone who needed help. Her spirit of volunteerism and selfless dedication to her community certainly deserves to be recognized.

Morgan’s own home has become a “drop-off” center for the needy. Almost every day, she visits local groceries and stores, collecting donated items for the homeless, and then delivering the items to the shelter. She holds fund-raisers to help The Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and has coordinated fund drives to help many needy individuals in her community.

She volunteers monthly in veterans’ hospitals to assist with bingo and other activities that serve to make these veterans’ lives a little brighter. As Chairman of the VFW Auxiliary “Make a Difference Day” projects held over the past few years, Morgan has managed to raise thousands of dollars to provide hospital beds in nursing homes, as well as raising the money for a new girls’ softball field in her community. She even finds time to go into the schools and teach the children about patriotism and respect for America’s veterans and its flag. It is unimaginable how anyone could think of Pat Morgan as being “retired!”

Pat Morgan has touched the lives of so many people in need that it is impossible to mention all of her efforts. Certainly, her motivation is not monetary, because she receives no compensation for the kind acts she renders. Rather, she derives a sense of personal satisfaction from knowing that she has helped another. How wonderful it would be if everyone in this world held the same values!

Many people think that they must be famous, or have a fancy title behind their name in order to make a difference. Pat has shown the world, by her own example, that it is simply care and compassion for others, coupled with a willingness to serve, that really does make a difference.

ANN ARBOR YMCA YOUTH VOLUNTEER CORPS

The Ann Arbor YMCA’s Youth Volunteer Corps (YVC) began through a competitive grant process from the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation in 1994. YVC is a youth driven organization dedicated to providing opportunities for middle and high school aged youth to engage in meaningful service learning activities that meet real community needs, foster leadership development and teamwork while promoting a lifelong ethic of volunteerism and a commitment to social justice.

Programming is year around and has four major components. The Alternative Projects are one-time service projects that provide constructive “alternatives” for youth after school and on weekends. The Youth Advisory Council (YAC) is a youth leadership program and YVC’s governing body. The Chain of Plenty is a unique four partner collaborative to engage special needs students in service learning while simultaneously feeding the homeless each week. Expanding Horizons is YVC’s intensive summer program that engages youth in weeklong blocks of service activities throughout Washtenaw County in teams often youth and one adult Team Leader.

With all program components combined in 1999, YVC engaged almost 300 youth in contributing over 8,500 hours of direct service to 26 agencies in the Washtenaw County community. Some of the projects included: staffing the playroom at SAFEHouse Domestic Violence Shelter for the summer, serving meals with the Ann Arbor Hunger Coalition, sorting food at Food Gatherers, painting a house with Habitat for Humanity, assisting residents at Glacier Hills Nursing Home and Baker Commons Residential Facility, gardening and weeding at Leslie Science Center, Dawn Farms, and Cobblestone Farms, and assisting the Red Cross with their annual Swim-A-Thon. Youth volunteers need to have constructive and productive programs where they can feel that they are a valuable asset to their community and can see the benefits of engaging in positive behavior.

Each YVC project consists of an agency orientation so that the youth volunteers are educated about community agencies and about how their volunteering benefits the work of that agency. Additionally, in the process of service learning, youth volunteers participate in a reflection activity at the completion of the project. During reflection, volunteers are able to ask any questions they have and discuss things they have learned. But most significantly, reflection gives the youth volunteers the opportunity to process the day’s events and to realize the benefit of their work for the community. In this manner, YVC helps the community with direct service, but also by providing youth with many of the Search Institute’s Forty Developmental Assets necessary to make good choices about their lives.

YVC is a completely free program for youth in grades six through twelve. All activities are open to any interested youth in this age range regardless of class, race, gender, ethnicity or economic status. All projects are available to all participants and their families, therefore providing opportunities for mobilizing everyone to volunteer. YVC and all of its components are ongoing throughout both the academic year and the summer months. There is no limit on the number of projects in which a volunteer can participate.

PATTI NEAL

Patti Neal was speaking to a dear friend of hers and found that her friend’s son had been diagnosed with Leukemia. Neal realized this teenage youth needed a bone marrow transplant to live. The procedure is quite expensive and all of the expense is not covered by insurance. Neal realized her friend needed help at that hour, and she set out on a campaign to raise money, awareness and find a suitable bone marrow donor.

Neal was soon referred to a newly formed organization, My Friends Care, which consisted of two women who were both in need of bone marrow transplants. Neal joined with the ladies, and they planned fundraisers and learned about the national donor list registry. The team then organized and sponsored blood drives where people could register as donors, be type tested and be put on the list as potential donors.

As a result of Neal’s ingenuity and dedication and the help of other volunteers, My Friends Care was able to grow as an organization. However, the teenager and one of the two founders passed away before a suitable donor could be found. Neal continued their efforts and raised more money and donor drives in memory of her lost friends. My Friends Care is a stronger, viable partner in the education of the public about bone marrow transplants and the support of those in need of the same.

Neal has been a part of My Friends Care since 1990. She has served as 2nd Vice Chair, Development Committee Chairperson and is currently Chairperson of the organization. Neal has raised thousands of dollars for the organization and the group puts on a Silent Auction Dinner annually to continue to raise money for the organization. The donations help others who need bone marrow transplants. Neal has also personally recruited several thousand donors to the National Marrow Program Donor Registry. After making several phone calls to the NASCAR Racing circuit, she has been able to organize donor drives at the Michigan Speedway races. There, 4,000 people have been tested in four years time. Neal organizes the drives, recruits nurses to come to take the necessary samples and encourages the race fans to become donors. My Friends Care has added 75,000 donors to the National Marrow Donor Registry.

Neal has also volunteered her time serving women through the Haven Crisis Line. In addition, she is involved in her Union’s community service activities including but not limited to the Special Olympics, St. John’s Transplant Support Group and blood drive for the American Red Cross. Neal not only gives of her time, but she also supports these causes financially and with ideas to help them function at their peak.

STATEN ISLAND SCHOOL READING VOLUNTEERS

A Staten Island School Reading Volunteer serves the children of Staten Island so they can open the mind of a child, give a child encouragement, affirmation, and self-confidence, help a child overcome disadvantages, and light a child’s way to a literate and productive future. During the past 41 years, the dedicated members of this extraordinary volunteer corps have helped thousands of youngsters improve their reading skills, abate their anxiety about reading, and discover both the substance and the joy of reading.

The 41-year-old volunteer program is operated by the Staten Island Mental Health Society (SIMHS), through an arrangement with District 31 of the New York City Board of Education. Unique on Staten Island, it was launched in 1960 by philanthropist Elizabeth w. Pouch, an SIMHS founder and benefactor. In the ensuing years, the program has grown from a handful of tutors to more than 200 volunteers assisting hundreds of children in 35 public elementary schools. The program receives no government funding, and the volunteers are neither paid nor reimbursed for any of their expenses.

School Reading Volunteers must be high school graduates in good health, and must possess patience and concern for the welfare of children. All volunteers receive four hours of training from a Board of Education reading specialist, who instructs them in innovative tutoring techniques using age-appropriate books, learning games, puzzles, story-telling, and poetry, to motivate and engage the children. After training, volunteers are assigned to the schools of their choice. The children who need tutoring, selected by teachers and principals, are excused from class twice a week for 45-minute reading sessions in another room.

Reading volunteers face the challenges of tutoring children who may have emotional or behavioral problems, short attention spans, dysfunctional home lives, or limited English proficiency (an increasing problem on Staten Island, where the immigrant population is growing). The reading instruction is just as vital as the connection that volunteers build with their students. The tutors have been encouraged to develop close, kind, respectful relationships with the children, many of whom do not have other concerned adults in whom to confide.

Reading volunteers consistently work above and beyond what is required, putting in more hours than their weekly commitment, spending their own money on books and supplies to enhance learning, traveling to schools via public transportation, and braving winter weather so they do not miss a lesson with the children who depend on them.

The program’s major impacts are the positive outcomes for the children. Youngsters whose futures were once devoid of promise have not only advanced academically, but they have received the mental health advantages of bolstered self-esteem. Teachers and parents report that as the child progresses in reading, his/her confidence grows, leading to a longer attention span, a more positive attitude, and improved behavior in class, at home, and in the community.

HELPING OUR PUPILS EXCEL (HOPE) TUTORING CENTER, INC.

Helping Our Pupils Excel (HOPE) Tutoring Center was established in 1996 as a neighborhood outreach program of Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Arlington, Texas. Local church members, neighborhood school personnel and members of the East Arlington Renewal Association (community advocates for neighborhood renewal) met together and identified the need for free tutoring services. This group was motivated because they wanted to help the children in the neighborhood. HOPE was organized and it soon became a 501(c)(3) agency. The initial steering committee consisted of members from the groups listed above and also representatives from local civic organizations, clubs, ethnic groups, churches and youth centers.

Aldersgate UMC now provides facilities with a branch at Good Shepherd UMC. A third branch has recently opened at Epworth UMC. These churches have adopted HOPE as a mission project because they also want to help the children. There is no religious education occurring during the tutoring sessions and volunteers come from across the city of Arlington.

HOPE provides free tutoring for students in the fourth through the eighth grades. After undergoing orientation, training and a criminal background check, the volunteers tutor at these sites on Tuesday and Thursday from 3:30-4:30pm and from 6:30-7:30pm. The volunteers of HOPE Tutoring Center provide one-to one or one-to-two tutoring for four hours per week at each of the centers. Many students can walk to these sites from their schools and from their homes. The centers are closed on the days that Arlington schools are closed.

HOPE is now in its fifth year of operation. The accomplishments for the 1999-2000 school year showed that 110 volunteers assisted 77 students, who received an average of 30.89 hours of tutoring for the year. Parents reported that students’ self-esteem increased, interest in school was enhanced, and grades improved because of their children’s involvement in the HOPE Tutoring Center.

According to the latest IRS information, the HOPE tutoring volunteers are worth $14.30 an hour. These volunteers gave 2,379 hours of free tutoring which is worth $34,019.70. Major funds have come from the Community Initiative Fund Grant (United Way of Metropolitan Tarrant County), the Community Development Block Grant (City of Arlington), and The United Methodist Church.

STONEHILL COLLEGE INTO THE STREETS PROGRAM

Since its inception at Stonehill in 1992, Into the Streets (ITS) has been committed to engaging members of the Stonehill Community in meaningful service experiences that challenge and teach them to be agents of social change, committed to the creation of a just and compassionate society. Stonehill’s Into the Streets program is a part of the national Campus Outreach Opportunity League’s (COOL) Into the Streets program. However, Stonehill adapted COOL’s concept of day of service for first-year students at their fall orientation, and developed it into a yearlong service program for freshmen through seniors.

The mission of the program embodies the Foundation’s mission “to engage more people more effectively in volunteer community service to help solve serious social problems.” The Into the Streets program provides many opportunities for students to serve. At the core of ITS is student leadership and community partnerships. The ITS Leadership Team has 2 Student Directors and 16 Student Site Coordinators. This team is responsible for the site-related programs’ success as well as the overall operations of ITS. In addition, the program has a Summer Intern who is responsible for organizing and executing ITS Day during Fall Orientation.

ITS consists of over 350 students who participate in over 30 different service agencies on a regular basis. Into the Streets also publishes a directory of over 80 local non-profit, human services agencies, which the students can use to organize their own service experiences. Besides the annual ITS Day, ITS’ programming has numerous additional aspects. Eight daily volunteer opportunities in which groups of students teach English as a Second Language, work with children in a homeless shelter, deliver food and furniture to those in need, tutor junior high students, assist at an adult day health program and do childcare for a family in crisis. Ten weekly volunteer opportunities in which students serve at two nursing homes, a mentoring program, an animal shelter, two transitional housing shelters, a community agency which advocates for the Hong people, a high school and two group homes.

Monthly volunteer opportunities at a children’s museum, a food bank, two inner-city parishes and a senior center are also recipients of ITS’s service. ITS is involved in annual community service opportunities like the Aids Walk, Cancer Walk, Walk for Hunger, Make a Difference Day, Up With People Service Day, trips with residents of a state hospital, phone-a-thons and food drives. ITS also has weekly reflection suppers where students gather to dine and reflect on their personal service experiences. The community agencies provide guest speakers on various topics of social injustice or public policy and how it affects the people they serve. ITS also promotes a life-long commitment to service by publicizing post-graduate volunteer opportunities through individual student resource counseling, Alumni panels and an annual Recruiter Nigh in which different volunteer organizations gather to interact with interested students.

Stonehill students involved in ITS completed over 4,600 hours of service during the 2000–2001 academic year. Since the inception of ITS, the amount of service hours completed through ITS has increased 450% and the number of student participants has increased 100%.