Ongoing Volunteer Opportunities

Public Service Opportunities for Spring!

All are available to students, and many are available to staff, so please read on and pass along the messages.

Spring Fellowships

Does teaching physics first to high school students improve science understanding? How safe are the labs at Cambridge's high school? You can get paid to help to answer these pressing questions, design a computer lab, or work with students in science labs. Paid Fellowship opportunities for contributing to Cambridge high school science education! Graduate and undergraduate students are welcome to apply. See http://web.mit.edu/mitpsc/fellowships/spring

General Opportunities

Open to graduate and undergraduate students and staff! Love science? Become a SciPro or KEYs mentor, or a LINKS volunteer-now, while we're recruiting! Love reading and children? Become a ReachOut tutor (required training for new tutors this Friday, 2/6!) Want to share your interest in math and computers? Try iMath! Want to bridge the digital divide? Work with CommuniTech and teach or refurbish. Interested in invention and design? Come to the IDEAS information dinner on Feb 12 at 7:30 pm in 10-105. Want to find out more? See http://web.mit.edu/mitpsc

Work-study Opportunities

ReachOut tutors and SciPro mentors can be volunteer or Federal work-study for eligible students. See http://web.mit.edu/mitpsc/programs/ for program and application information.

Grants

Coop Grants and PSC Grants are available to all students; CSF grants are available to all members of the MIT community for their local community service work. For more information, see http://web.mit.edu/mitpsc/fundedopps/grants

New for Graduate Students!

Public service grants and other opportunities are being developed just for graduate students, thanks to a GSO grant made possible by student life fees. Interested in getting a grant or helping to shape other initiatives? Contact Sally: susnowit@mit.edu, 8-7344.

Consult to Start-up Non-profit on Technology Plan

AFC Mentoring (afcmentoring.org) needs consulting to develop a strong technological infrastructure for the program's future growth. This
volunteer opportunity includes, but is not limited to, analysis of equipment needs, server needs, database design, and more.

To learn more, please contact volunteer@afcmentoring.org, or call Justin at (617) 695-2438.

Please e-mail: mentor@afcmentoring.org or call Karlee at (617) 695-2441 to learn more.

Extra Hands for ALS

Extra Hands for ALS is looking for volunteers to assist patients with ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease - a non-contagious, fatal disease of the motor neurons which affects the voluntary muscles of the body) in their homes with non-medical tasks.

Students attend a brief training and then are matched with another student, a mentor, and a patient. All participants are insured and bonded through us.

Volunteers commit to going to a patient's home once a week for two hours (days and hours are flexible) to assist with things like errand running,
organizing, dog walking, emailing, or even with reading alound or helping to record memoirs. Students also participate in awareness building activities to assist us, The Jack Orchard ALS Foundation, with our mission of supporting research and education to find treatments and possibly a cure for ALS.

We have patients signing up all around the Boston area. For more information, please visit our website www.jackorchard.org or contact the director Kara Henner Eastman at Kara@jackorchard.org or at 949.362.2869.

Josiah Quincy Elemenetal School

The Principal of Josiah Quincy Elementary School (Boston Public Schools) asks GSVC to help find volunteers to tutor fourth and fifth grade students in mathematics and is hopeful of forming a tie to the student body at MIT.

The level of assistance she needs is in the order of 2 hours on a Saturday morning at the school, perhaps by a couple of volunteers. The school is located in Boston's Chinatown, adjacent to the New England Medical Center (and T-stop). There are about 900 students at the school; approximately 20% Black, 10% White, 60% Asian, and 10% Hispanic. A bilingual education program is offered in Chinese.

For more information, please contact Peter Shilland at 617.452.6188. School Information: Josiah Quincy Elementary School, Ms. Sandra Lee, Principal 885 Washington St Boston, MA 02111 617.635.8497

READ for CHANGE

READ for CHANGE The Boston Adult Literacy Fund's Annual Read-a-thon http://www.balf.net

Over 5,500 Greater Boston Adults are on waiting lists for basic education - some will wait as long as three years. READ for CHANGE shortens waiting lists by bringindg together students, teachers, colleges, and alumni to raise money and awareness for adult literacy.

READ for CHANGE requires no running, jogging, or walking in inclement weather. All you have to do is collect pledges for the total number of hours you promise to read from Feb 1st - Feb 15th, then mail your pledge form and checks to the Boston Adult Literacy Fund.
More more information, check out http://www.balf.net/

Young Entrepreneurs Project (YEP)

Young Entrepreneurs Project (YEP) is a mentoring program for youth with sensory, learning, and physical disabilities. The goal is to match these youth with adults in the community who have had business, academic, or career success. Youth and their mentors can work together on career development for the youth (developing resumes, filling out college applications, touring colleges, etc.) and spend time just having fun (going to movies, picnics, attending sporting events, etc.) If anyone is interested in learning more about mentoring through YEP, please contact Genelle Campbell at 617-727-7440 ext. 335.

MIT Committee on the Blind

We (the MIT Committee on the Blind) are a new program (we are just starting this next year). But, we will be working closely with the Harvard Committee on the Blind which has been around for several years and has had many happy volunteers. We are broken into two main sub-programs-Working at Perkins, and Reading to the Blind.

The volunteers who go to Perkins typically spend about 2 hours a week (including travel) to go to the Perkins School for the Blind. While there they help tutor teenage students with their class work. This is a wonderful program for those who like to work with kids. If you do volunteer though we will expect you to commit to it for the whole semester.

Reading to the Blind, is a much more individually organized program than Perkins. In this program volunteers are paired with blind people in the Cambridge-Boston area who they can visit to read. This is a wonderful way to meet an interesting new person to whom you will be a great help. The time commitment is 1-2 hours a week for a minimum of 3 months. There are two ways in which we pair people. Either we are contacted by blind people in the area for whom we then find a reader, or, we send the volunteers to the Mass Commission on the Blind. The MA commission on the blind requires all their volunteers to go through a training session (it only takes a couple of hours and is fun) to get certified to read to the blind. Then, they pair everyone up with someone they can read to.

The other main activity we do at the Committee on the Blind is to help support others who are doing blind related community service work and to inform them of one time opportunities relating to the blind (for example last semester, I was contacted by a blind woman who was only in town for a week and needed some one to read for her at her court deposition).

If you are would like to volunteer, or would like more information (or would like just to be on our mailing list), please e-mail nate@aleph0.net.

Helping Hands for Homeless Children

The Horizons Initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing programs and services for homeless children throughout Greater Boston. One of our programs, the Playspace Volunteer Network, recruits and trains volunteers to provide developmental and educational opportunities through play to children living in family shelters and battered women's shelters. The shelters are in many neighborhoods of Boston (Dorchester, Roxbury, the South End, Brighton, Jamaica Plain, East Boston, Charlestown), and surrounding communities (Cambridge, Somerville, Medford, Malden, Waltham, Lynn, Weymouth, and Newton).

This program would not exist without the caring and dedication of our many volunteers. We currently have nearly 600 volunteers placed in 44 shelters, but we are always in great need of new volunteers. If you enjoy pre-school and school aged children and are able to commit to 2-3 hours weekly, we hope you will contact us to learn more about our volunteer program. This is a fun way to make a very important in the lives of children who are homeless! Please call 617-287-1900 today for more information and an application, or visit our website at www.horizonsinitiative.org.

MultipliCity Program

The MultipliCity Program is a partnership between the MIT PSC and Tutoring Plus, a local afterschool homework center that serves low income elementary and middle school students. The goal of MultipliCity is to create mentoring relationships between MIT and Tutoring Plus students and to strengthen the youngsters academic skills, appreciation of diversity, career and higher education aspirations, and familiarity with Boston/Cambridge. MultipliCity volunteers help us achieve these goals by leading mentoring, tutoring, and enrichment activities at the homework center and by participating with students in our series of monthly multicultural fieldtrips.

We are looking for the following types of volunteers:

1) MIT students willing to serve as mentors to a child. This would involve working with your student ONE NIGHT A WEEK at the homework center and participating with students in monthly multicultural field trips. The HW center operates 6:15 - 8pm Mon-Thurs. and is approx. a 10 minute walk from campus. Ongoing training will be provided.

2) Individual students or student groups willing to conduct a multicultural performance, interactive demonstration (workshop), or presentation at the evening homework center at some point during the semester or on one of the students' visits to MIT. I know many of you guys have been rehearsing all year. Why not share your performance with an eager young audience?

3) MIT students who would be willing to take our students on a tour of their MIT lab or workplace when they visit campus. During these visits we would also hope you could tell them more about college and the field in which you are working. We would be particularly interested in having some MIT students who have immigrated to the US talk to our students, since so many of our students are immigrants and it would be great for them to see the heights they can achieve! Our next campus visit will be Sat. March 16.

Your help would be much appreciated. Please contact me if you are interested in signing-up or if there are questions I can answer.

Cheri Goldstein
cgoldst94@hotmail.com
Coordinator for the MIT/Tutoring Plus MultipliCity Program

Young Entrepreneurs Project (Partners for Youth with Disabilities)

I am writing to see if I could set up a meeting with you to inform you about great volunteer opportunities for members of GSVC. I work for Young Entrepreneurs Project (Partners for Youth with Disabilities) and we set up mentoring relationships between youth with disabilities and successful adults in the community. We currently work closely with Black Law Student Association at Harvard University and the Boston Volunteer Bridge, but are currently in need of more mentors. If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, you can contact Genelle Campell via email (genellecampbell@hotmail.com) or by phone at 617-727-7440 ext. 335

Walk for Hunger 2002

Nearly half a million people in Massachusetts do not have adequate food on a regular basis. In our state, one in five children under the age of 12 is hungry or at risk of being hungry. The annual Walk for Hunger has been providing your neighbors - children, the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed, and the working poor, with groceries and meals for the past 33 years. The Walk for Hunger is a truly awe-inspiring event, and it's the oldest and biggest of it's kind! Boston pretty much shuts down to let 40,000 people walk 20 miles from Boston Common through Cambridge, Newton, Brookline, and Watertown. These people really walk with a ton of heart and "sole". It's a little piece of history, everyone in Boston has either walked or volunteered or knows someone that has, the Governor even comes out every year! Every organization that feels like a part of Boston should really be there! Although the staff works diligently, we can't put this on all alone! My name is Patricia Pina, and I am the volunteer coordinator for this year's walk. Every year, we need 2,000 volunteers on Walk Day. It is always the first Sunday in May, this year that's May 5th, 2002. We need people to help set up, hand out water, register walkers, act as crossing guards, and break down at the end of the day. We can really accommodate any size group for any period of time. Also, since the Walk covers 20 miles we can help to find a location that works for you too.

However, before the Walk, we need some help as well. The last week of March and the first week of April we hold a phon-a-thon in which we call Walkers from last year to thank them for walking and to see if they have received their information for this year. The calls are made at night during the week; we need around 250 people to volunteer in total. This is very important, so if you were interested in helping with this as well, that would be extremely appreciated.

Please let me know if there is anything you can do, and I will try to be as accommodating as possible. Please e-mail (Patricia_Pina@projectbread.org) and let me know what you think, or feel free to call me and discuss anything at 617-239-2546, and I can mail you more information. Thanks and I'll be waiting to hear from you!

Community Technology Centers' Network

"The CTC Support Project at CTCNet (www.ctcnet.org) is looking for passionate and technically skilled volunteers to be placed in Boston area Community Technology Centers (CTCs) in both long-term and short-term capacities. Great experience for students, professionals with tech knowledge, and others. Many CTCs close to public transportation. Placement at center will be tailored to skills, interests, availability, and location.

Current Opportunities include:

• Serving as a computer-room monitor/helper at center in East Boston
• Help to create and teach staff to maintain a simple website
• Teach Microsoft Office to beginners in an after-school computer lab.

To sign-up as a potential volunteer or for a list of current opportunities, please visit our project website at http://www2.ctcnet.org/ctcsp/.Or contact Johanna Pabst at jpabst@ctcnet.org or 617-354-0825 x18.

MIT Graduate Student Volunteer Corps

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