Have you heard about United Way of Greater Nashua’s Volunteer Greater Nashua web portal which was created through a partnership with The Telegraph? Volunteer Greater Nashua is an easy-to-use website that allows people interested in volunteering in Greater Nashua to search for opportunities by zip code, interest area and more. Volunteer Greater Nashua is a great way to find your perfect volunteer position and gives nonprofit agencies a way to get the help they need. Here are some of the highlights of the most recent opportunities featured on the site, but you can find more on Volunteer Greater Nashua at http://www.volunteeergreaternashua.org.

Grow Nashua: The mission of Grow Nashua is to provide nutrition education and develop community and school gardens that improve food awareness while increasing food access for the Nashua community. Their programming focuses on families who may not have the land and/or financial resources to act as stewards to growing space of their own. Grow Nashua acts as a resource and a partner in lining up all the pieces necessary to make it easy for our farmers to have space, plants, supplies and training to support and amplify their efforts. They round their programming out with a series of cooking classes through partnerships with the New Hampshire Food Bank and Share Our Strengths’ Cooking Matters. These classes are offered in Nashua and are focused on utilizing the foods grown by us and learning how to cook healthy, tasty meals on a budget. They need volunteers to help with their “Fall Garden Tidy-Up.” These volunteers will help with planting, harvesting, mulching, organic pest control, efficient watering techniques, fixing fences, building doors, plant identification and much more. They also are looking for volunteer cooking class coordinators and social media ambassadors. For more information, visit www.volunteergreaternashua.org and search for “Fall Garden Tidy-Up” or “Grow Nashua.”

Bridges Domestic and Sexual Violence Support: Bridges is a crisis center under the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. Bridges serves to empower victims and survivors by providing a variety of supportive services such as crisis intervention, court advocacy, housing, a 24-hour crisis line, support groups and much more. Bridges is looking for a “Crisis Line Volunteer” who will work in conjunction with the direct service program coordinator and other agency staff in order to provide crisis intervention support and advocacy to individuals who have been victimized by domestic and sexual violence. The volunteer is responsible for assessing the client’s needs, offering supportive services including referring to other programs as appropriate, reporting statistical information, maintain client records and attending crisis intervention meetings. For more information, visit www.volunteergreaternashua.org and search for “Crisis Line Volunteer” or “Bridges.”

Xavier House – Xavier House is a community of 34 units of affordable housing for elderly people and people with disabilities. The building was originally a beautiful old stone parochial school and was converted into apartments. They provide resident service coordination to assist in linking residents to the services they need within the community. They need volunteer “companions” to spend time with residents on their own schedule for one-on-one visits with seniors who may like a companion to play cards with, read a book with or just someone to talk to. They also need “food pantry assistance” from volunteers who can help with their food pantry in Nashua on Wednesday mornings from 9-11:30 a.m. Opportunities include helping clients shop for items in the pantry, signing in clients, registering new clients and restocking shelves. For more information, visit www.volunteergreaternashua.org and search for “Companions”, “Food Pantry Assistance” or “Xavier House.”

S.C.A.R.E.: S.C.A.R.E. collects kids’ and adult Halloween costumes from families who no longer need them and makes them available to families who can’t afford to purchase Halloween costumes. Their motto is: “Saving Halloween … One Costume at a Time.” Each year, S.C.A.R.E. sponsors a free haunted house where money donated helps them do great things for the community. S.C.A.R.E. is currently in need of a volunteer tax-consultant with experience with nonprofits. For more information, visit www.volunteergreaternashua.org and search for “Tax Consultant” or “S.C.A.R.E”.

United Way of Greater Nashua: Founded in 1930, United Way fights for the health, education and financial stability of every person in every community. They serve the 11 communities of Greater Nashua. With its commitment to financial and governance accountability, United Way of Greater Nashua is a Four-Star rated nonprofit from Charity Navigator and due to their commitment to transparency, they are rated “Platinum” by GuideStar. Ninety-eight percent of the funds they raise stay in the local community, and more than 85% of what they raise supports the mission of creating positive community impact. United Way of Greater Nashua relies heavily on volunteers to serve on their committees and boards, to assess the needs of the community and to deliberate over how to distribute funds. Some committees they are currently looking for volunteer help on are their events committee, marketing committee and resource development committee. The events committee plans the details of events like its Shoebox Project, Blizzard Blast and Community Baby Shower. The marketing committee is looking for a few people who can help get the word out about projects through social media, help create a cohesive marketing campaign, help us with our website design (WordPress) and help brainstorm new marketing tactics. The resource development committee works on finding innovative ways to raise money in the community. This includes doing things like communicating with chambers of commerce to arrange projects/partnerships with local businesses, brainstorming fundraiser event ideas, networking and making connections with community members and using what you know about the community to come up with other types of fundraising projects. For more information, visit www.volunteergreaternashua.org and search for “Events Planning Committee,” “Marketing and Social Media Committee,” “Resource Development Team” or “United Way of Greater Nashua.”

Sara Ceaser is the United Way of Greater Nashua director of volunteer and community engagement.

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