Volunteer teams remain disrupted
Safety still an issue as nonprofits work to return programs to action
Yaphet Morales remembers even at a young age being drawn to volunteering and service work.
That led him as an adult to become a senior impact manager for City Year Milwaukee, a nonprofit organization where leaders work as life coaches and tutors for children who may be dealing with hunger and family trauma, even providing them with a safe space to do schoolwork.
Part of this work involves working with schools — many of the children are from Milwaukee Public Schools — and also involves partnering with other service organizations.
And amid COVID-19, that became almost impossible.
Not only were organizations limiting their volunteers (or in some cases, scrapping them altogether), but the thought of any in-person work was frightening.
Now that some of those concerns have dissipated, Morales felt comfortable bringing his City Year team out to volunteer at Milwaukee’s Hunger Task Force, which aims to prevent hunger and malnutrition.
“I felt like the gain was going to outweigh what the risk was going to be, especially with the conditions they have here (Hunger Task Force),” Morales said.
But that’s not the case for everyone. Some Wisconsin nonprofits have found themselves below the desired number of volunteers. For others, the pandemic has forced them to reconsider how they operate their volunteer programs.
Just enough to get by
About a month ago, Samantha Vosters, the volunteer engagement manager for Riverwest Food Pantry, noticed that volunteer shifts had begun to go unclaimed at a much higher than normal rate.
The pantry, which serves those experiencing food insecurity with a weekly food distribution program at St. Casimir’s Catholic Church on North Bremen Street, continued to operate even after the onset of the pandemic. Volunteer numbers hovered steady, too.
Over the past month, though, Vosters has struggled to find enough volunteers to fill shifts. The number of usual volunteers is down 30% to 40%.
That drop has affected each stage of the organization’s operations on its farm off North Port Washington Road. The organization uses its farm to produce much of the fresh produce it provides to those in need, growing tomatoes, eggplants, squash, onions and kale, among other crops.
Cultivating these crops in an organic manner, Vosters said, requires consistent attention from volunteers.
Vosters said the pandemic has shifted many out of the habit of regular volunteering. And for some, this summer has been a time to do other things like traveling after a year of restrictions.
The problem is compounded by the fact that summer already tends to have low volunteer turnouts.
For now, Riverwest Food Pantry has found just enough help to get along.
“Last-minute people are just coming, showing up,” Vosters said. “We are getting
just what we need for the day.”
The pantry is operating at one-third of its usual capacity. The farm, at an even lower rate.
“Our quality of service really declines, our staff gets burdened” when volunteer rates remain low, Vosters said.
And Riverwest Food Pantry is not alone in its search for volunteers.
“About 90% of what we do is volunteer-led,” said Justin Kern, communications director for the American Red Cross of Wisconsin.
Kern said that the Red Cross is particularly pressed to find volunteers for its Local Disaster Action Team, a division of volunteers that responds to largescale disasters in the state, including fires, floods and tornadoes. In the state’s most urban regions, including the southeast, Kern said the team responds to a number of apartment fires, too.
The pandemic has lowered the flow of new volunteers, Kern said. Yet, the number of disasters has continued to increase.
The disaster response team responded to about 800 incidents in Wisconsin and the western-most counties in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan from July of last year to June of this year. Of those, 376 occurred in the state’s nine southeastern counties, which includes Milwaukee.
Volunteers, Kern said, vary from those who dedicate a few hours a month to others who are active most days of the week.
While responding to events, many volunteers help connect affected individuals with shelter, mental health, food and clothing needs in the immediate aftermath of disasters. Others assist in
delivering these supplies to those affected.
Shifting operations, roles
Not all nonprofits are struggling to the same extent.
Milwaukee’s Hunger Task Force is seeing its volunteers come back in full force. However, that doesn’t mean they didn’t face challenges along the way.
When the pandemic first began, the Task Force had to suspend its volunteer program over safety concerns. And for an organization that relies on 16,000 volunteers annually to support its mission, that was not an easy feat.
Normally, volunteers support the Task Force by sorting food, building stock boxes (or a box of healthy foods) for seniors, growing and harvesting fresh fruits and vegetables at the Task Force’s farm in Franklin, and more.
In order to make up for its missing volunteers, it had to convert many of its employees to new roles to help with these tasks, said Jonathan Hansen, director of development at Hunger Task Force.
“We all had to do double duty. We worked extra hours,” Hansen said.
They also had to bring on additional farmhands to meet demand.
Despite the shift in operations, Hansen said volunteer interest never wavered.
“When the pandemic first started, we had people calling us left and right saying, ‘How can we help?’ They wanted to be there for us and work side by side with us,” he said.
That kind of commitment helped the Task Force regain its volunteers when they reopened the program earlier this summer. It’s still limiting the number of people who can volunteer, and staff members are still picking up the slack, but Hansen said they’ve received inquiries every day from potential volunteers, eager to come back and lend a helping hand.
“We could not do the work that we do without the support of our volunteers,” he said. “Our volunteers are everything to us.”
For others — like Next Door Milwaukee, an organization that provides early childhood education in Milwaukee — volunteers are just as valuable as funds.
Cristina Crogan, vice president of development and communication for Next Door Milwaukee, said it relies on a grant from the office of Head Start for its funding. That grant requires proof that the community supports its mission. Volunteering hours are part of that.
Similar to the Hunger Task Force, Next Door had to cut its volunteer program when COVID-19 hit. Students had to go without the volunteer-led reading and tutoring that’s vital to youth development and growth.
This summer, Next Door was able to bring these programs back, but it hasn’t come without its concerns.
Like other nonprofits, volunteer safety is critical — and that still isn’t as easy when the main volunteer work is with children, most of whom are unvaccinated.
A significant amount of Next Door’s volunteers also come from local businesses. However, with some employees stuck in virtual work situations, it complicates things.
Crogan said she’s worried they may run into challenges recruiting people when their full bandwidth returns, especially since some businesses may not be ready to engage with outside organizations yet.
These barriers don’t change the fact that Next Door needs volunteers, whether that’s one-on-one tutoring, reading to kids or helping clean and distribute more than 75,000 books every year.
While COVID-19 has made some cautious about volunteering, it’s clear others are yearning to be back.
As a longtime volunteer, Morales, from City Year, wasn’t scared to come back; if anything, he was confident.
He said he felt safe coming back in person to volunteer at the Hunger Task Force because its protocols aligned with his comfort levels.
It’s something that people should look into if they want to come back and volunteer in person, he said.
“For me, service is my favorite part of my job,” Morales said. “So just coming here (Hunger Task Force) is what I like to do.”