Volunteers play an integral role at Milestone Senior Services – some of our services rely heavily on the support of our volunteers. Last year, Milestone utilized 363 volunteers who provided more than 32,700 hours of volunteer service. The programs where we utilize the most volunteers are Home Delivered Meals (Meals on Wheels), Senior Companion, and our Ramp program.
Volunteering at Milestone is easy. You can fill out an application on our Volunteer Services web page to get the process started, or you can contact our Volunteer Coordinators at 269-382-0515 180. Our volunteer opportunities are very flexible – you are welcome to volunteer as much or as little of your time as you like. Some volunteers like being on a regular schedule, and others come and go as their schedules allow. Volunteering at Milestone is very rewarding and is a great way to socialize with others while serving your community.
Our biggest need for volunteers is with Home Delivered Meals and Senior Companion. With our Home Delivered Meal program, volunteers provide meal delivery. We have 17 routes in Kalamazoo County and 10 routes in Calhoun County, Monday through Friday. Ideally, we would engage two volunteers for each route – one person is a “driver” and the other is a “hopper.” The hopper walks the meals to the door and engages our participants. Both positions are very rewarding as our volunteers are not only delivering a healthy meal to people who lack access to adequate nutrition, but they are also providing a warm smile and friendly greeting – for some clients, this is the only interaction they may have that day.
The Senior Companion program matches volunteers who are age 55 and older to seniors who benefit from companionship. Some clients live at home in the community, and others reside in nursing facilities. This becomes an ongoing one-on-one relationship which provides wonderful benefits for both the volunteer and the client. This program is sponsored by AmeriCorps Seniors and provides additional benefits to the volunteers, including a stipend for income-qualified volunteers to help compensate them for their time and travel.
Our Ramp program engages volunteers interested in helping in our Home Repair workshop to construct entry ramps and/or want to work on-site installing ramps at clients’ homes. Our crew has a streamlined process of pre-building sections of ramp in our workshop so that the installation on-site is more efficient. Some volunteers in this program are retired trades people who are highly skilled, and some have never swung a hammer, but they are willing to learn.
Other volunteer opportunities at Milestone include organizing and packaging pet food for delivery to our Home Delivered Meals clients who have furry companions, kitchen assistance, and occasional office assistance. Volunteers who are 55 years of age and older, may participate as a Senior AmeriCorps RSVP volunteer and receive additional benefits. In addition to engaging volunteers at Milestone, through the AmeriCorps Seniors RSVP program, our we connect volunteers who are 55 years of age and older to volunteer opportunities elsewhere in the community. So, if the volunteer opportunities at Milestone are not what you are looking for, contact us and we can connect you to one of the many nonprofits we work with throughout the community to place volunteers.
