Academic support and mentoring for public housing youth

We are looking for ongoing volunteers to spend time with young people in our drop-in afterschool programs located in public housing communities around Portland. Ages, interests, and abilities vary greatly between our programs so we are looking for volunteers who are interested in getting to know a lot of different youth and being a caring adult in their lives.

We provide training for all volunteers and they are always paired with experienced staff members. Volunteers help us to distribute attention and activities to more youth in the space. A couple of hours in our program could consist of reading books with little ones, playing Uno with Middle School students, then helping a teen write an essay for school. Every day is unique and focused on the youth in the space and what their needs are that day.

We prefer volunteers who can commit to 2-3 hours per week on a given afternoon in one location so they can build relationships with and consistency for the youth in that neighborhood. If possible, we would like a two month minimum commitment, again for consistency for our youth.

We require all volunteers to be fully vaccinated and provide proof of vaccination prior to volunteering. We also require masking and social distancing regardless of vaccination status in our program spaces.