Volunteer Opportunities
Interested in getting some hands-on experience using your new language skills? Consider one of these valuable volunteer opportunities that will also give you the satisfaction of know you've done something to help make the community a better place.
American Red Cross
Assist with community disaster preparedness, specifically educating the Latinx community on disaster preparedness, which includes our youth educational programs (the Pillowcase Project for third - fifth grade students and Pedro Prepares for K - second grade), small business preparedness (www.ReadyRating.org) and general disaster preparedness to help build overall community resiliency.
Contact: Megan McDonald, 252.375.0454
Black River Health Services, Inc. - Manos Unidas
Manos Unidas is a nonprofit farmworker health program hosted by Black River Health Services. Our mission is to improve the well-being of farmworker and their families through health outreach, education and resource connection. We prepare health education material and present it to farmworkers during camp outreach, mobile clinic and community events.
The Spanish volunteers will be working on brochures, flyers, and any other health education material needed for health outreach. The volunteers will also be invited to participate in any event(s) that are hosted during that time. Lastly, the volunteer may be also asked to help with food distribution drives and food drop off at farmworker camps and homes.
Contact: Angelica Santibañez Mendez, 910.889.0291
Cape Fear Clinic – Medical & Pharmacy
The Cape Fear Clinic is one of the state's fee and charitable clinics. We serve a diverse patient population which includes many Spanish speaking patients. About 30 recent of our patient population are Spanish speaking only and would benefit greatly from interpreters.
Volunteers will interpret during appointments and make phone calls to Spanish speaking patients to give lab results or schedule appointments. They will assist in translating informational materials. Through this experience they will have the opportunity to improve their interpretation and translation skills.
Contact - Medical Department: Kevin Stang, 910.343.8736 x133
Pharmacy: Dr. Jennifer Buxton, 910.343.8736 x100
Cape Fear Food Council
The Cape Fear Food Council's (CFFC) mission is to coordinate our collective efforts and advocate for system-wide change on issues such as supporting local family farms, combating food insecurity, and reducing food waste.
One of the largest projects has been to create a local food guide. Additionally, the CFFC has a program for hunger relief efforts post-disaster, Disaster Food Connect. All of the literature for these two projects need to be translated.
Additionally, this group will be hosting resource fairs and potentially host an educational program for the local candidates that needs to be accessible to all! The materials can be sent to the student through email or some kind of cloud system.
Contact: Kat Pohlman, 252.531.4566
Cape Fear Habitat for Humanity
Help increase home ownternship opportunities for Hispanics by translating materials and interpreting for potential clients; hours/days vary,
Contact: Amy Davis, 910.762.4744, ext. 114
Curamericas Global
Since 1983, Curamericas Global has partnered with communities to save the lives of women and children. Curamericas works with communities that have some of the highest child and maternal mortality rates in the world and in areas where preventable diseases like malnutrition, pneumonia, and complications from childbirth can quickly lead to death.
Curamericas makes measurable impacts on the health of the community by focusing on prevention, health education and establishing relationships with existing health facilities. We definitely need help to reach vulnerable communities during this emergency. With the winter just around the corner, prevention and encouragement for seeking treatment early will save lives.
Volunteers will assist with: a) Phone calls to LatinX population for health prevention, access and social service referral. b) Asynchronous training of about 2 hours and then live synchronous training of 30 minutes, then phone calls to the most vulnerable.
Contact: Andrew Herrera, , 919-801-0612
El Cuerpo
El Cuerpo connects Hispanics to health, education and spiritual resources in Wilmington. We offer tutoring, ESL classes, a health clinic, as well as other events/information for Hispanics. Volunteers will assist with:
- answering phone messages/emails
- updating the website
- assisting or teaching ESL classes
- assisting with tutoring (PreK-8th grade)
- translation of documents/flyers
- health clinic work (phone calls to check-in on patients, translation of documents etc)
Contact: Elizabeth Cooper, 704.458.7833
GenX Exposure Study / NC State
We are trying to communicate findings from the GenX study to Spanish speakers. This role will help us update our website, research materials, and return calls to study participants in a timely manner. Also, this person can help recruit new study participants and engage with local residents about water contamination.
*Our group meets at 10 am on Tuesday, so it would be nice, but not necessary to attend those meetings on occasion.
Contact: Jane Hoppin, 919.515.2918
International School at Gregory
We are a K-eight public dual immersion school in Spanish. In grades K-five, students receive 50 percent of their instruction in Spanish. Volunteers will be asked to:
- Support teacher and/or teacher assistant in virtual meetings with small group of students following teacher guidelines.
- Prepare/follow up on activities for students.
- Support teachers and teacher assistants with small groups reading, writing, or with oral skills.
Contact: Lina Espinosa, 910.251.6185
MedNorth Health Center
Primary care service delivery provider - pediatrics, OB/GYN, family medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, behavioral health, podiatry. Open 57 hours per week; including 2 evenings and Saturdays. No residency requirements for services. Approximately 35% of our patients are native Spanish speaking. While about 22% of our staff are Spanish speaking, we always have a need for more help to interpret to our patients. Volunteers will be asked to:
- assisting patients with completing paperwork
- translating written materials into Spanish
- developing a Spanish newsletter and bulletin board
- working with the Pharmacy interpreting to patients who need to pick up their prescriptions
- working with Health Care providers who may need assistance understanding the health care needed
- providing clarification of treatment in Spanish
Contact: Lacie McDonald, 910.202.8658 / Gil Lawrence, 910.202.8607
New Hanover County Schools
Our classrooms are diverse, with a growing number of students arriving from other countries, predominantly from Spanish-speaking countries. These students can be new arrivals or students who have been in the US for a while but still have a need for language support.
Volunteers will provide academic support: tutoring, help with a project or research papers etc. (common in high school). Elementary and middle: individual tutoring, small group or classroom support are common means of support. We especially need students interested in tutoring in Math, Science, English, History/Social Studies at all levels.
Contact: Maria Black
New Hanover Disaster Coalition
We do community outreach and provide recovery and preparedness resources in English and Spanish. Would love assistance in making sure all communications are bi-lingual and accessible. Volunteers will be asked to:
Help translate resources for disaster preparedness, I would be open to a creative outreach project to ensure folks know the recovery resources.
Review website and social media of Coalition and partners (NCEM & VOAD) for resources to be shared.
Contact: Audrey Hart, 910.338.9121
NourishNC
Through the BackPack Program, NourishNC is feeding 1,600 food-insecure children in New Hanover County every weekend and over all school breaks. Our program serves children from 51 schools in the county and has made measures to increase its bilingual materials year-over-year to encourage access to these food programs in our Latinx communities.
NourishNC's Backpack Program does not require any documentation other than a signed enrollment form from the parent (working to go paperless on this, particularly heading into the start of next school year) and children are typically referred by the social worker in the school.
Volunteers will be asked to:
- translate ALL written materials
- improve communications to families enrolled on the program via text, email, and phone
- be available during grocery distributions for translation assistance
- create additional materials which schools with a large Latinx population could use to explain and orient new families to the Backpack Program, etc.
Contact: Katelyn Mattox, 910.465.0995 x302
Sunset Park Elementary School
We are a K-5 public elementary school in Wilmington. We will be 50 percent Hispanic this school year. We will need support to be able to better meet the needs of our students and families.
Volunteers will be asked to:
- work directly with students as well as working collaboratively with teachers to support students and families.
- work with small groups of students in math and reading
- collaborate with teachers to help meet the needs of the students and families
Contact: Diego Lehocky, 910.815.6951
The Law Office of Vanessa A. Gonzalez PLLC
We are an immigration law firm with mostly Spanish speaking clients. We participate in community outreach, education and other activities outside of our legal work. Volunteers will be asked to complete:
- general office work (shredding/filing)
- translations of affidavits
- research on legal issues
- marketing (e.g. delivering rack cards, social media)
- community support and outreach (emergency hurricane outreach, tabling at festivals, etc.)
- virtual work would be related to legal research, translating, social media, etc.
* This can vary upon interest and skill level.
Contact: Vanessa Gonzalez, 910.399.2208
Wrightsboro Elementary
We are a K-five public school in Wilmington. A third of our population is Hispanic. I am the ESL teacher at our school and will love our students to have support. These students really enjoy working with others one on one when they are learning something new and could use support when completing tasks. I am the main contact person for all our Hispanic parents as well. I work closely with our Social Worker in helping these families in any way possible. Most of our Hispanic parents only speak Spanish or a different language from their country.
- The volunteers would sit with students during instruction to help keep them on tasks.
- They would also help them with completing assignments.
- Many times, I need these volunteers to help students practice their sight words and/or communicating ideas to their peers.
- As a volunteer, the person would be working with students one-on-one in the classroom, as well as pair activities that may require some discussion of ideas within the groups.
- They could help us with our bulletin board activities which our students work on with different projects.
- If working from a distance, these volunteers could be supporting students by phone regarding school assignments.
Contact: Miriam S Buie, 910.815.6909, ext. 508