Development & Volunteer Services works to educate the community and find new ways to fund the programs and services that our Guests need to achieve their goal of independence. There are many ways to volunteer your time and help our guests to go beyond shelter.
A program called "Challenging Minds-Challenging Homelessness” which promotes an increased awareness of homelessness by targeting schools, churches, civic organizations and businesses with interactive discussions. These discussions are followed by a 'Challenge' for the group to become active in the fight to end homelessness by becoming advocates in the community and sponsoring collections (such as clothing and toiletries) and fundraisers for Homeless Services.
Development and Volunteer Services has a variety of on-site community service opportunities for both individuals and groups. The "Community Meals Program" offers groups the opportunity to sponsor the cost of a meal and come out to serve it at either the Long Island Shelter or the Woods-Mullen Shelter. Through the "Sponsor-a-Row" program, a group can sponsor the cost of 100 seedlings on our Organic Farm and then come out to plant them. There are also clearing, weeding and harvesting projects on the Farm.
In addition, there are a variety of other tasks at each of the shelter sites. There is always a need for volunteers for cleaning and painting projects to help meet the consistent demand for improvements. There is also a need for volunteers to host game or activity days or evenings, for example, we have Bingo once per month for our Guests. We recruit tutors for our classroom, as well as monitors. We always need people to come in and teach 'Life Skills' such as budgeting, balancing checkbooks, how to set up a household and how to plan for independence.
Throughout the year we hold a variety of donation drives. During the Fall we kick off the “Warm Hands-Warm Hearts” campaign for new hats, mittens, gloves and scarves. We also start the "Coat Fund" to raise money to buy new coats for our men and women. All year long we need to bring in gently used clothing for our Guests while also providing them with toiletries. In the Spring, we hold a flip-flop drive for shower shoes. At the Holidays, we turn to the community to help us provide brand new gifts for each of the men and women staying in our shelter programs, as well as for the children of those in our programs.
If you would like more information on these, or any of our other programs, please call us at
Challenging Minds Challenging Homelessness:
(617) 534-2526 ext. 46108
Community Meals Program or Volunteer opportunities:
(617) 534-2526 ext. 46108
Toiletry, Clothing, and Donation needs.
(617) 534-2526 ext. 46130