ScrapsKC’s mission is to care for Kansas City’s environment, education and homeless through creative reuse. With the mantra ‘reuse, repurpose, renew,’ ScrapsKC takes your old stuff and creates new possibilities for creation. Their store not only diverts  tons of trash from the landfill, but it also provides resources for artists, teachers, makers, churches, scouts, and more. So make sure to check them out if you need supplies for your next craft or if you have some stuff you think they could sell!

They also have an urgent need of volunteers to help divert tons of creative materials from a large event at the Kansas City Conventions Center on May 24! This is a huge and exciting undertaking for them and they need your help. Check out this link for more information and to sign-up to volunteer.

Happy volunteering!

Founder Bill Milliken began Communities In Schools (CIS) in New York City in the 1970’s. He came up with the idea of bringing community resources inside public schools-where they are accessible, coordinated and accountable. “It’s relationships, not programs, that change children,” Bill once said. “A great program simply creates the environment for healthy relationships to form between adults and children. Young people thrive when adults care about them on a one-to-one level, and when they also have a sense of belonging to a caring community.”

CIS of Mid-America continues to carry out Bill’s vision and has a proven track record of improving student outcomes in academic achievement and behavior patterns. Students participating in CIS of Mid-America projects have increased promotion and graduation rates, improved attendance, improved academic performance and have fewer discipline referrals.

If you’re interested in getting involved with CIS, one great way to meet the coordinator at the Crossroads Preparatory Academy is by attending Motivational Monday. I went to the last one and it was so much fun to high five all of the kids before they got to school! Here’s more info:

Happy Volunteering!

This story was emailed to me recently and it’s a great example of some of the services Cultivate KC provides:

Hoop house dreams Bryon Postlethwait thought he was all set to start farming on his small lot on the corner of 15th St. and Sterling Ave. in Independence. He received an NRCS grant to build a high tunnel, but then he got notice from the city that he didn’t have the permits or clearance to farm. He didn’t know what to do; so he reached out to Cultivate KC. “I knew Cultivate supports local farms, so I said this is my situation, can you help?” he said. “I was very thankful because I had no idea where to go or who to talk to.” Cultivate KC’s Metro Farms & Food Systems develops urban farms and community-based food projects through technical assistance, growers network development, collaborative projects, and policy/systems change. Over three months, Metro Farms program manager Mark Gawron reviewed and edited applications with Bryon, appeared before city officials and found engineer inspectors to please all parties and get the farming structure approved. “Making it through this process in our conversations with the engineer and the permit department will only help the process for the next farmer.” Mark said.

Aside from helping local, urban farmers and increasing food access for the metro area, Cultivate KC also uses urban farming to help refugees. In partnership with Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, Cultivate KC manages the New Roots for Refugees program, which trains refugees with agricultural experience to become independent farmers. The goal for farmers in the program is to learn how to successfully grow in the Kansas City region and to acquire the marketing skills and confidence to become independent small business owners.

If this organization speaks to you, then check out their volunteer opportunities!

Attention all JCCC students, staff and faculty! JCCC is building a Tiny House on campus and could use your help! Dan Eberle is in charge of the project and he is on site 10am-5pm Monday through Thursday. If you’re able to help for a bit, shoot him an email to let him know. They can use all they help they can get! The Honors and Community-Based Learning Office went out there yesterday and had a lot of fun!

It’s not every day that we get to be out in the sun and use our muscles :).

Happy volunteering!

This event was sent to me recently, what a fun way to teach financial literacy to the leaders of tomorrow!

You can sign up here, breakfast and lunch will be provided! If you’re interested in a specific booth (options listed below), make sure to let Becca Spielman know via email. These will be assigned on a first-come-first serve basis.

• Housing
• Utilities
• Healthcare
• Transportation
• Insurance
• Banking
• Communications
• Child Care
• Chance
• Charitable Giving
• Entertainment
• Financial Advising
• Shopping Center
• Supermarket

Happy volunteering!

Today I had the opportunity of touring the HopeFaith Homeless Assistance Campus. Campus is a good way to describe the 50,000 square foot facility that is meant to be a one-stop-shop of day services and education to the homeless and at-risk population. You may or may not know this, but most homeless shelters that provide a safe place to sleep close at 6:30am. And one of the major barriers to the homeless is a lack of transportation. So having one location for these individuals to take care of a variety of basic needs can have a huge impact. The list of services that HopeFaith has on site is truly impressive: a medical clinic, eye clinic, and dental clinic; clothing closets for men and women; sewing rooms and sewing internship programs; a bike shop and bike repair internship program; indoor and outdoor community gardens; they even have a barber shop  in the works. This is on top of serving hundreds of breakfast and lunch meals a day. Located in proximity to two homeless shelters, HopeFaith can strategically serve a large population of homeless Kansas Citians and empower them  to become self-sufficient and independent.

HopeFaith Ministries is continuing to improve this facility and, of course, they could use your help! I talked to the volunteer coordinator today during the tour and she was enthusiastic and passionate about finding the right volunteer opportunity for anyone who comes in her door. Because they have so many different programs, there are a lot of different volunteer opportunities. And they are flexible for creating a unique volunteer position to fit your talents.

If you’re interested, check out their volunteer webpage and reach out to Kayla today.

Happy volunteering!

This email came across my desk recently:

“My name is Amie Eppler and I am a Camp Director for Olathe Parks and Recreation Special Needs population. The camp meets Mon.-Thurs. in June from 12:30-4:30 at Frontier Middle School. I am looking for community members to come to the camp and share their talents or skills they have.

These are some examples of skills or talents that I am looking for:

• Theatre
• Outdoor Group
• Cooking/Baking
• Magician/Balloon artist
• Arts/Crafts
• Science experiments

If you have a group that would like to visit the camp and interact with the students that would be awesome. I know that you have other camps on campus, but if a club wanted to set-up some activities for my campers, we could travel to the campus.

You can share with them my information:

Amie Eppler
[email protected]
913-634-5643 (please text or leave a message)
Camp Heartland & Rolling Along Camp Director
Functional & Adaptive Special Education Teacher”

Reach out if you’re interested! Happy volunteering!

In the last year Bridging the Gap Volunteers have:

• Planted more than 7330 trees
• Restored 14 native wildlands sites
• Collected and processed 127 species of native seeds
• Picked up more than 8814 pounds of litter
• Educated thousands of recyclers

And there’s so much more to do! If you’re interested in helping with Bridging the Gap’s mission of working to make the Kansas City region sustainable by connecting environment, economy, and community, then check out their upcoming volunteer opportunities! Especially check out the tree planting on Earth Day (4/22), because what better way to celebrate Earth Day then by helping the Earth?

Happy volunteering!

A lot of people are familiar with the Goodwill stores, but not everyone is familiar with their mission. Aside from helping us get rid of our old stuff, and in turn helping eliminate waste and providing cheaper items for those in need, Goodwill also empowers people with disadvantages and different abilities to earn and keep employment through individualized programs and services. So buy giving stuff to Goodwill, you are helping fund their employment services, empowering local job seekers, and keeping items out of the landfill!

You can also help by volunteering of course! And on Saturday, April 27, Goodwill will be at JCCC for the Overland Park Extravaganza Donation Drive.

Volunteers will:

• Assist with accepting donations of household items and clothing and place in Goodwill trucks
• Assist with flow of donations and traffic to ensure safety and proper loading of truck
• Need to be able to lift 20 pounds, bend and stand as necessary

There are two shifts available: 7:30am to 11:00am or 10:30am to 2:00pm

If you’re interested, you can sign up here. If you can’t volunteer, what a good time to do some spring cleaning and unburden yourself of anything that doesn’t bring you joy 🙂

Happy volunteering!

The mission of the Guadalupe Centers is to improve the quality of life for individuals in the Latino communities of Greater Kansas City.

They accomplish their mission by: providing early childhood, secondary, adult education and workforce training programs, facilitating access to health and social services for all ages, promoting and providing Latino cultural enrichment events, sponsoring social activities that engage our diverse communities.

One of the cultural enrichment events/social activities they do every year is their Cinco de Mayo Fiesta! This fundraiser not only benefits their programs, but it continues a neighborhood tradition that originally started in 1922, making it the original Cinco de Mayo Fiesta in Kansas City! Growing in popularity with new attractions for the 2 day event, families can enjoy local and out of state entertainment, mariachis, folkloric dancers, food trucks, kid’s rides, petting zoo, vendors, contests, raffles and much more!

And as always, they need the help of volunteers! Click here to check out the different volunteer roles and shifts. Give back and have some fun while you’re at it!

Happy volunteering! And happy Friday!