Friday, April 10, 2009
Making matches
An agency helps pair volunteers with those who need them most.
ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times
Sharah Underwood, 9, plays with her mentor, Mary Brewer, at the Presbyterian Community Center.
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Lori Dowd is an 18-year-old freshman at Virginia Western Community College. She also waits tables at Metro, a downtown Roanoke restaurant.
But to the fifth-grade girl whom Dowd meets every week, Dowd is a volunteer who helps her with homework -- and is a friend.
Dowd only began mentoring three months ago at Roanoke's West End Center but had always wanted to volunteer. When she finally had the time to devote, she wasn't really sure where to begin. Dowd soon received an e-mail from her college advertising the Council of Community Services, specifically its volunteer services department.
The Council of Community Services is a human services planning agency based in Roanoke. Meant to connect agencies with people in need, it is a hub of sorts, bringing together nonprofit agencies, businesses and people so that they can better serve anyone in need. The council regularly provides HIV/AIDS and STD resources, community data and assessment reports, and even a nonprofit networking system, among other things.
"We don't provide child care; we help parents find and select quality child care," explained Pam Kestner-Chappelear, the president of the Council of Community Services. "We don't provide financial assistance to those in need; we provide those in need with names and phone numbers of organizations that can provide financial assistance."
Volunteer services helped Dowd find the right agency for the mentoring she hoped to provide.
Alison Jorgenson, the director of volunteer services, said that she works with about 100 agencies and will arrange for an average of about 60 referrals each month. Last year, the council referred more than 700 volunteers to agencies in the Roanoke Valley alone. Volunteer services also trains the agencies it refers volunteers to, in hopes of better using the volunteers sent out.
Volunteer services sent Dowd to Family Service of Roanoke Valley, where she was assigned to mentor the 10-year-old girl after school once a week. Sarah Lawrence, the teen outreach program manager for Family Service of Roanoke Valley, said Dowd not only helps the girl with her homework, but really listens to her, too.
The girl "loves it," Lawrence said.
Family Service of Roanoke Valley currently provides three volunteers to three different after-school programs in Roanoke. Each mentor is required to volunteer at least four hours each month.
Dowd said she chose the mentoring program because she loves kids and hopes to be a teacher someday. She's already making plans to attend Radford University in the fall, and she regrets that this move will end her weekly chats with Morgan. Thanks to this positive experience, Dowd said she plans to volunteer next year no matter where she lives.
