Corporate Opportunities
Year Round
Project Name: Safe & Sound Mom and Baby Welcome Kits
Description: Families entering our domestic violence shelters at times arrive with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Hold a drive to collect essentials for the babies in these families or for those soon to be born; items such as: receiving blankets, onesies, bottles, pacifiers, socks, bibs, wash cloths, baby lotion, diapers, wipes, and formula. Find a list of items here.
Location: Your office
Date: Year round
Budget: Flexible
Project Name: Book Drive
Description: Libraries in several of our residences have recently been refurbished but many of the books and magazines on the shelves are outdated and in poor condition. Hold a book or magazine drive in your office to replenish the contents in these libraries so that our clients are up-to-date with current events and able to enjoy today's bestsellers.
Location: Your office
Date: Year round
Budget: N/A
Project Name: Re-Gift It!
Description: Do you receive gifts that you simply can't use but someone else might LOVE? We'll take them! Collect new, good-quality gift items at your workplace for adults and the elderly. We will give them to our residents as gifts on birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and other special occasions.
Location: Your office
Date: Year round, but especially during the December holidays
Budget: N/A
Project Name: Back to Basics Kits
Description: Hold a drive to collect basic items needed by residents in all of our facilities. Examples of much-needed basics include kits of soap, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrushes, deodorant and moisturizer. (Please - no razors or mouthwash.) For the men at our shelter on Wards Island, we always need new socks and underwear. For the children at our Early Learning Center in the South Bronx, each month we use dozens of pull-up diapers, as most of the children are not potty trained when they enter the program.
Location: Your office or our Manhattan Headquarters
Date: Any time
Budget: TBD
Project Name: Kitchen Housewarming Package for Veterans
Description: Raise funds to purchase housewarming gifts for formerly homeless veterans who are about to move into apartments of their own. For most of these men and women, this is their first permanent home in a long time, and they are starting from scratch. A Kitchen Welcome Package may include pots and pans, a set of dishes, silverware and utensils, and some condiments, and pantry staples.
Location: Your office
Date: Any time
Budget: TBD
Project Name: "Project Green Thumb"
Description: Basic supplies are needed to help start a horticultural therapy and education project for veterans living at Commonwealth Veterans Residence in the Bronx. In the winter months, the program will focus on maintenance and education, with gardening taking place during the summer months. Find a list of needed supplies here.
Date: Supplies needed ASAP
Budget: Flexible
Project Name: Holiday Carnival or Ice Cream Social
Description: Host a fun Summer Carnival or Ice Cream Social for youngsters residing in our homeless and domestic violence shelters. Volunteers create a fun and memorable event for these children, transforming a recreation room with festive decorations, playing games, painting faces, sharing pizza and ice cream, and handing out gift bags.
Location: 2 sites in the Bronx; 2 sites in Manhattan; 1 site in Queens and 2 in Brooklyn
Date: Any weekday
Budget: $750 - $1,500
Project Name: Celebrate Our Veterans
Description: Bring all the fixings for a barbecue or luncheon at one of our Veterans residences. Both have an outdoor space, which includes a basketball hoop and chess tables. In addition to food, you may also bring board games, BINGO and arts and crafts activities to enjoy with our veterans on a summer evening or weekend day.
Location: Manhattan or Bronx
Date: A mutually convenient time
Budget: $1,000 to $2,000
Project Name: Brightening Birthdays
Description: Host a birthday party for children living in our homeless and domestic violence shelters to restore normalcy in their lives and ensure that all of our children are celebrated. Five to ten volunteers come to the party for the children with birthdays that fall in that month to paint faces, work on arts and crafts projects, and serve cake and pizza. Prior prep work involves decorating special name badges and crowns for the birthday children.
Location: Manhattan
Date: Monthly dates available
Budget: $700
Project Name: “A Room of One's Own" Welcome Package
Description: Raise funds to provide new bed linens and pajamas for foster children entering a new group home. Imagine coming into a group home, not knowing anyone and having very few, if any, of your own possessions. That is the reality for most children in the foster care system. When these young people arrive in our Northern New Jersey residences, we would love for them to be able to have a new set of linens, a comforter, a pillow, and a set of pajamas to keep and call their own. They can then take these cherished possessions with them when they transition to their first independent homes.
Location: Your office
Date: Any time
Budget: $875-$1,575 for one 5-9 person group home, assuming $175 per set
Seasonal
Spring/ Summer
Project Name: Early Learning Starter Backpack
Description: At our Early Learning Center in the South Bronx, most of the 250 children we serve live in poverty and have developmental delays. Many don't have a single book in their home, and very few speak English when they begin with us. You can help get these children off to a good start – and actively engage their families in the learning process – by giving them a backpack to take home filled with a “starter library" as well as watercolors, crayons and a drawing pad or coloring book. For the 1st year students we include picture books about starting school and potty-training. For the 2nd year students, at the start of the year, we include an "all about me" book and, for the end of the school year, a book about starting kindergarten. Early Learning Starter Backpacks also include a composition notebook in which teachers write daily notes home to parents, wipes, a sippy cup, and a durable snack food container so that the children can bring to school foods that are comforting to them.
Location: Your office or our school in the Bronx
Date: June or July
Budget: Flexible
Project Name: Operation Backpack®
Description: Bring your office co-workers or congregation members together to collect backpacks and school supplies for children residing in NYC's homeless and domestic violence shelters. Then have your team join us for “Sort Week," when we pack the backpacks and prepare them for distribution. Since 2004, Operation Backpack® has provided backpacks and school supplies to children living in homeless and domestic violence shelters throughout New York City. Last year, we provided 19,000 backpacks filled with grade-specific school supplies – including a dictionary, scientific calculator and flash drive for high school students; and watercolors, crayons and drawing pads for preschoolers. Not only did these children begin the school year with the supplies they need to do their work, but they looked and felt more like their classmates on that all-important first day of school.
Location: Your office and/or our Manhattan offices
Date: July-August; “Sort Week" scheduled for August
Budget: Flexible
Project Name: Family Day Cookout
Description: Join the staff of Volunteers of America in hosting a Family Day
Cookout for families affected by domestic violence. Many women who leave violent relationships find moving to a shelter very difficult, and they often lack adequate social skills to build better lives for themselves and their children. This Family Day helps these women and their children to reduce stress levels and deepen relationships with other residents in the shelter. Activities include games, music, food, face painting, arts and crafts, and a barbecue.
Location: Queens, Manhattan or Brooklyn
Date: Spring or Summer Weekday
Budget: $750-$1,000
Project Name: Barbecue & Field Day or Field Trip for At-Risk Youth
Description: Host a Barbecue and Field Day or a Field Trip for young people aged 13-21, bringing them the joy and laughter that being a kid is all about. The youth who benefit from this program are in transition or crisis and live with us in group homes, short-term emergency shelters, or supportive housing programs for youth aging out of foster care. Field Day activities include a barbecue, softball, volleyball and basketball, contests (jump rope, hula hoop, water balloon toss), and raffles.
Location: Northern New Jersey, location TBD
Date: A weekday in the summer
Budget: $1,000-$2,000, for barbecue food, games, prizes
Project Name: Painting and Beautification Projects
Description: Painting or beautification projects are available at many of our locations. Capital improvement projects enable residents to foster a feeling of connection to the community and a sense of pride in where they live.
Location: Various locations
Date: Spring or Summer Weekday
Budget: $1,500-$3,000
FALL / WINTER
Project Name: Toys For The Holidays
Description: Collect age-appropriate toys and other gifts for children in our homeless and domestic violence shelters in New York City, preschoolers at our Early Learning Center in the South Bronx, and teens in our group homes in New Jersey, to ensure that no one is forgotten during the holidays. We also have a limited number of Secret Santa letters from children in our shelters and early learning centers to which corporate groups may respond. Then join us for “Sort Week," when we pack the gifts and prepare them for distribution.
Location: Your office and/or our Manhattan offices
Date: November-December
Project Name: Burt & Barbara's Gifts of the Heart
Description: Collect small gifts that we can give to our older adults and veterans risiding in our programs. For many of these clients, VOA is their only “family." Burt and Barbara were two such clients who met and fell in love when they both were placed in VOA-GNY apartments, after Willowbrook State School finally was closed. Burt & Barbara's Gifts of the Heart is named for them and for their enduring love for each other.
Location: Your office
Date: For Valentine's Day and the December holidays or all year long for birthdays and other milestones
Project Name: Valentines for Veterans
Description: Show our veterans you care this Valentine's Day by donating new gloves, hats or scarves, and making or purchasing cards with heartfelt messages of support and encouragement. Organize a drive to collect items at your office, or among family and friends. Learn more about participating in Valentines for Veterans.
Location: Your office
Date: We must receive all items by February 7
Budget: TBD