Volunteering at Family has tremendous benefits: It’s a great way to get to know people in your community. It’s a chance to learn new skills while making a difference. It’s a way to contribute where you live. Ready to get started?
Please complete our Volunteer Interest Form
Here some of the way you can help:
Hotline and Textline Volunteering:
The Family of Woodstock hotline/textline is the oldest, continuously operating emergency switchboard in the county. We have proudly kept it running 24/7 since 1970. The hotline is the foundation program from which all other agency programs, now totaling 24 and counting, grew. Embodying our “helping with any problem under the sun” attitude, the hotline staff and volunteers aid thousands of people every year with whatever issue is impacting their lives. Remaining operational for more than 50 years has been no small task. The only way we can continue to serve the community is with help from volunteers.
Our Agency is in great need of hotline volunteers – to find out how you can help, contact us at 845-679-2485, email Sue Carroll at scarroll@familyofwoodstockinc.org, or come in to our building at 16 Rock City Road, Woodstock.
Volunteer Counselor Training
Are you interested in helping both your local and wider community? Are you that listening ear that friends and loved ones always seem to turn to? Are you interested in using the skills you have and building on your knowledge of helping? Family’s hotline training is just what you’re looking for!
Training covers the core of Family’s phone and texting hotline and walk-in services. Topics include domestic violence, child abuse, mental health and substance abuse, adolescent issues, suicide, and homelessness. The training is free of charge and oriented towards personal growth. You will learn active, compassionate listening skills and ways to connect with people in need. Family offers an opportunity to be part of the change you wish to see in the world. Intervention is as simple as answering a phone call or text message at the moment someone reaches out. It is as direct as offering a cup of coffee and a bag of food to someone who is hungry. It takes your skill and the amazing depth of resources Family has gathered over its 50+ year history.
The next 40-hour training curriculum is tentatively scheduled September 2024 and is open to all 16 years old and over.
The training will qualify you to volunteer at any of our three walk-in centers – New Paltz, Ellenville, or Woodstock.
For more information call (845) 679-2485.
Non-counselor Volunteers
The Woodstock Hotline office helps the community in many ways and we rely on volunteers. If you would like to help with our holiday programs, the food pantry, maintaining our free store, or helping with building and property maintenance projects please email Alan Rovitzky at arovitzky@familyofwoodstockinc.org.
Prepare meals for Kingston Youth Programs
HODGE CENTER SUMMER PROGRAMS (starting July 1st)
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
Family of Woodstock, Inc. is a sponsor of the New York State Education Department’s Summer Food Service Program. Each summer, dozens of volunteers and staff work together to prepare and distribute thousands of meals to local children participating in summer programs throughout the City of Kingston. All meals are prepared at the City of Kingston’s Everette Hodge Community Center, located at 15 Franklin St. in Kingston. Please consider joining our volunteer team to ensure that no child goes hungry on our watch!
Hours of Service:
7:00am-9:00am- breakfast prep and packaging
10:00am-12:30pm- lunch prep and packaging
In addition, we could use help at the sites to which we are delivering food to make sure that they have enough support to properly serve the kids. All sites are located within the City of Kingston.
For more information or to help out, please contact Tina at tbarrett@fowinc.org or call (845) 331-9683.
HODGE CENTER AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAMS (during the school year)
VOLUNTEER SUPPORT JOB DESCRIPTIONS
- Assisting with all aspects of meal preparation, including such tasks as cutting fruits and vegetables, slicing deli meat, peeling potatoes, and other tasks as needed
- Packing meals for off-site programs
- Assisting in keeping the kitchen and dining areas clean and organized
- Assisting with dishes as necessary
Hours: 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Work Site: Everette Hodge Community Center
Purpose: To assist with the serving of meals to the children and adolescents of the Everette Hodge Community Center’s after school program. The meals will be served “family style” with the food being placed on the tables and the youth plating it themselves.
- Setting and resetting tables for each meal shift
- Assisting in keeping kitchen and dining area clean and organized
- Helping ensure that all the kids have eaten
- Assisting with dishes when necessary
- Sitting and engaging in conversations with youth at the Everette Hodge Community Center
Position: Programming Support Volunteer
Hours: 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Work Site: Everette Hodge Community Center
Purpose: To support staff with child and adolescent programming at the Everette Hodge Community Center’s after school program.
Additional Responsibilities:
- Providing child supervision
- Overseeing arts and crafts
- Supervising outdoor play
- Playing board games and other recreational activities
For more information or to help out, please contact Tina at tbarrett@fowinc.org or call (845) 331-9683
Farm to Food Pantry Collaborative
In collaboration with the Rondout Valley Growers Association, UlsterCorps and the Hudson Valley Farm Hub, the program addresses food insecurity by engaging local farmers to donate locally grown produce and training volunteers to glean, process and distribute nutritious food to the network food pantries, feeding programs and shelters in Ulster and surrounding counties. Volunteers are needed to assist with field gleanings and distribution of donated produce to local food pantries, shelters and feeding programs throughout the growing season. We are also in need of volunteers to assist with processing (generally on Wednesdays) so that produce can be frozen and distributed throughout the winter. If you’d like to learn more or help out, please contact volunteers@familyofwoodstockinc.org.
Volunteers needed for construction projects
Family is in need of volunteers with construction experience to assist with several projects for our Ellenville programs. If you can help out please email volunteers@familyofwoodstockinc.org
ELLENVILLE FOOD PICKUPS
Do you have a pickup truck or van, are you able to make a weekly commitment to Family, and the ability to lift boxes of food? If so, we could use your help picking up food donations in Ellenville, delivering them to Family of Ellenville sorting and stocking them in our food pantry.
Clerical/Administrative Work
FAMILY staff always need help getting information filed on the computer, creating data bases, making copies and stuffing envelopes for mailings. If you like office work, we could use some of your time. If you have any graphics skills that would be a plus!
Skills Needed
Friendly and outgoing
Able to follow instructions
Prior experience a plus but not necessary
Interested in our Events Team?
Call Sue or Tamara @ 845- 679-2485
or email fowh@familyofwoodstockinc.org
FOOD, FOOD, FOOD!!!
Thinking of volunteering but don’t want to make a weekly commitment? Pick a Food Drive! FAMILY has monthly food pick-ups, scheduled food drives at Hurley Ridge Market, the annual Postal Food Drive, Yom Kippur Food Drive and MORE!
Last year FAMILY’s Woodstock Food Pantry fed more than 1,000 families