Needs From: Western Illinois University Volunteer Link

Conversations to Remember is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to combating loneliness and isolation felt by senior citizens. Our virtual visit program matches 2-3 college students with residents of long-term care, assisted living, and memory care communities for virtual video visits. These residents have been suffering from isolation, and you could really brighten their days just by speaking with them. We provide training to the students in the program about the best ways to interact with the seniors, as well as additional support throughout their service. Since these visits are virtual, you can participate without any travel. This is both convenient, and allows more of your time to be spent volunteering, rather than commuting to your volunteering location. We provide this program free of charge to seniors across the country, and have students from around the country as well. We hope that you will volunteer to help our seniors.

Typically, students volunteer 1-2 hours per week. Each call lasts up to one hour, based on the senior's attention span and mood on each day. We expect students to volunteer for approximately 16 weeks, so that they can build a friendship with the senior. This does not need to coincide with the start of a semester, as we have new seniors starting all the time, and train new volunteers weekly. The students are matched based on the times that they're available, with a senior who is available at the same time, and they will have a regular, weekly appointment for their visit. Students wishing for more visits or other opportunities that allow them to volunteer more hours can be accommodated with different ways to volunteer, such as assisting us with our social media, call support, or outreach.

Register to volunteer on our website, https://conversationstoremember.org.

Serve Macomb High School students breakfast during their late start on Wednesday, September 17th.

Each year we plant 175 purple and gold mums in front of the Alumni House in preparation of Homecoming. We need volunteers to help plant these mums. There will be shovels and gloves for volunteers. Please wear clothing you are willing to get dirty. We want to make the Alumni House look amazing as we welcome our WIU alumni back to their alma mater! 

Get involved behind the scenes by helping with field prep, sign placement, and a 500 lb inflatable movie screen set-up before the movie starts.

Race route monitors will be stationed at intersections along the Fallen Soldiers 5K race route to prevent vehicles from entering the race course while participants are running, and also cheer the participants on.

Start corral and Q-Lot volunteers will have two tasks. Prior to the beginning of the race, they will assist with getting racers in the proper order according to running pace and help get everyone set for the start of the race. After the race starts, they will move over to Q-Lot and make sure cars don't pull out onto the race course when runners are present, while also cheering the racers on.

Flag volunteers will meet before the race to set up the flags along the race route (2 hours - 6am-8am). They will work alongside and under the direction of the Bushnell Patriot Flag crew. They will meet again after the race has concluded to take all of the flags back down (1 hour - 10am-11am).

Help us spread the word about our housing stability and homeless services. Create Facebook campaigns, both for services and to attract donations.  Develop a quarterly or bi-monthly newsletter, email and print.  Create print brochures.  Create a marketing calendar and content.

Seeking a volunteer with prior experience with QuickBooks Online Advanced (QBOA), bookkeeping, and accounting.  This is a great opportunity for you to learn how to apply your skills about the world of nonprofit accounting and government grants - we will teach you what you need to know. 

Have skills working with dataset cleaning, analysis and reporting?  Genesis Garden and our regional partners aggregate data.  We'd like to interpret what we have to uncover patterns, predict seasonal trends, analyze service gaps, and improve services.  Help us create reports and graphs to demonstrate service usage and needs. We are part of the Built for Zero network, hoping to achieve functional zero for homelessness in our area by improving our systems.

Seeking motivated social work students to work alongside staff in Genesis Garden's emergency shelter, rapid rehousing, and permanent supportive housing programs in a variety of capacities. 

NAMI Ending the Silence is an engaging presentation that helps middle and high school aged youth learn about the warning signs of mental health conditions and what steps to take if you or a loved one are showing symptoms of a mental health condition.

NAMI Ending the Silence presentations include two leaders: one who shares an informative presentation and a young adult with a mental health condition who shares their journey of recovery. Audience members can ask questions and gain understanding of an often-misunderstood topic. Through dialogue, we can help grow the movement to end stigma.

As an Ending the Silence presenter, you will be trained to deliver the presentation to families, staff, and students. Presentations can take place within a school or with other youth-serving groups and usually last 1-2 hours. Times of the presentations vary depending on needs of the audience. A minimum of 2 weeks notice will be given before the presentation occurs and a small stipend will be provided to cover the cost of travel expenses.

NAMI West Central Illinois is hosting our first fundraiser this fall to help increase awareness and raise funds for our free programs. 

Volunteers are needed to help run the event and make it a success. Tasks will include assisting with check-in, directing traffic for parking, working concessions, and more. 

NAMI West Central Illinois is looking for volunteers to attend outreach events and set up informational tables in the community at various fairs and events. 

Volunteers will be introduced to NAMI programs and offerings prior to tabling events to ensure they are up to date with the latest information. Event dates, times, and locations vary. Volunteers will be given a minimum of 2 weeks advanced notice of the event. 

The Gift Gallery volunteer tasks consist of operating cash register, stocking inventory, assisting customers, and keeping things clean and organized around the gift shop. Proceeds from the Gift Gallery go toward funding MDH Scholarships! Our Gift Gallery has always been run by our amazing volunteers!

We need help getting volunteers together to assemble and install new playground equipment that was purchased by the Regional Office of Education 26, Preschool for All program at the YMCA Community Childcare Center. 

We are looking for parent volunteers for the upcoming 25/26 school year.

Volunteers are paired with a teacher at one of the various schools we are active in (MacArthur Early Childhood Center, Lincoln Elementary School, Edison) and will assist that teacher by working directly with the students in their assigned classroom.

Volunteers can choose to participate for 1 or 2 semesters per school year, and must volunteer in their assigned classroom for a minimum of 100 hours per semester to receive a $1,500 stipend. 

Volunteer hours can be flexible to fit around both the needs of the volunteers as well as the classroom they are assigned to. 

Each year our McDonough County Master Gardeners grow and donate over one ton of food to local food pantries. In 2025, we need your help to reach our food donation goals at our GIFT Garden. 

Our volunteer workdays are on Tuesday, starting at 9 AM and going until 11 AM. These workdays will be reoccuring throughout the summer and into the beginning of fall of 2025.

We need crisis line workers/volunteers to work our 24/7 crisis hotline phone! There will be a required class beginning in September. See events for all the information about sign up and attendance.

First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is looking for a dedicated volunteer to help keep our Emergency Cupboard stocked and organized! This is a great opportunity to serve the community by ensuring that those in need have access to essential food items. 

Responsibilities:

Restock and organize food donations

Maintain inventory 

Assist with receiving and sorting donations

Time Commitment: Flexible

If you are interested in volunteering or would like more details, please contact the First Christian Church office at (309) 837-6473. The church office hours are M-Th, 8:00 am - 12:00 pm. Please leave a message if no one answers.

Your support makes a real difference! Thank you for helping us serve our community with love and compassion. 

Hi there!

We are looking for volunteers to provide occasional snacks for our teen programs.

We have a rotation of people signed up to bring snacks, and usually each volunteer brings food a couple times each semester.

(Our organization is non-profit and depends on volunteer snack-bringers and other supporters in order to provide our programs and services, all of which are free and open to all teens.) 

The programs where would appreciate snacks occur on Monday evenings, Wednesday afternoons, Thursday evenings, and Friday lunches.  Any given program can have between 5 and 30 teens in attendance, depending on various factors.  You can bring baked goods and/or store-bought items, sweet and/or savory snacks, healthy and/or indulgent, or whatever you would like.  We have refrigerator-freezers, if you would like to bring beverages or frozen treats.  And if you bring "too much" of a snack – no worries!  We save any "leftovers" for the next subsequent program, and the teens help them disappear pretty quickly!

Whether you want to bring a snack every week or only once a semester, we would be happy to have the help!  Just let us know how often you would like to help, and we'll get you added to the rotation schedule.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or would like to chat: contactyfcwi@gmail.com, (309) 833-3026, or bpcyfc@yahoo.com

We are all about sharing the love of Christ with teens through our weekly programs and through personal, mentor relationships!  We are looking for young adults to come help with one of our various weekly programs for middle school and high school students, get to know the teens, and be a caring person who is active in their lives. 

We call our weekly events "Campus Life" – they are free, fun, and welcoming to all teens.  Our main programs in Macomb are on Monday and Thursday nights and last about 2 hours. 

If you started volunteering with us, we would love to see you at Campus Life every week, but we understand that you have a busy schedule and may not be able to be there consistently.  We are appreciative of any time you can lend our way!  We also have fun trips, outings, and connection times outside of our regular programs that you can also help with.

If you are interested in volunteering, you can apply here: https://formstack.io/2H_Gd3scgXdiV0yO3oVz1RwbHnvXYYKL9hpcFJyT-soupDAfnKhQqLbwDaLbguppv7kDmN_h3cR8tgbO9m9p-Q

We take security seriously, so everyone has to apply and be interviewed before you can start volunteering at our programs.

We hope and pray that if you love Christ and and want to share His love with the next generation, you'll come serve with us!

If you have any questions or want to chat, feel free to contact us at (309) 833-3026, contactyfcwi@gmail.com, or bpcyfc@yahoo.com 

God bless!

PLC is looking to recruit Volunteer Land Stewards to help care for the bare root tree plantings at Wigwam Hollow Bird Sanctuary. These trees require our help in order to thrive on the preserve. Stewardship work will mainly revolve around the removal of invasives species which can outcompete these young trees. Please email our program coordinator Jaime at pc@prairiehillsrcd.org if interested!

Sit with our residents and play some music or sing some songs

doing activities, crafts, or just conversating with the residents 

We rely on donations for every bed we deliver. We provide the bed frame which we build, we purchase mattress with donated funds and the pillows and bedding are all donations to help the cause. Check out our Amazon wish list:

https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/13ZZFZN7BGB72?ref=gr_search_page_result

Our individuals are looking for friends that are willing to teach them new hobbies or skills, read, go on walks, plan a party, exercise, play board games and puzzles. 

Please fill out the click form waivers and send them back to the agency. The turn around can take up to 14 business days for all background checks to come back. Once we have an all clear to move forward we will go over the Volunteer Handbook and get you placed at one of our homes near campus. You can find the handbook here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1phP5BZd4-1b8TU17VLiHjioxt5zXfSXx/view

Are you ready to make a difference in a child's life? Big Brothers Big Sisters is looking for compassionate and dedicated individuals to join our mentorship program!

As a Big Brother or Big Sister, you'll have the opportunity to: