RISE Together's on-site swim lessons for refugee youth will have 3 cohorts this summer! We are in need of dozens of volunteers to help with outreach, registration, assisting on-site at swim lessons, assistant swim instructors, and water safety lecturers. Register here!
Following are the open volunteer positions that you can register for:
- Outreach & Registration – 7 people for each canvassing
- Come with a group of volunteers to canvas the building where we will be hosting swim lessons: tape fliers to doors, talk to residents about the importance of swim education, get them excited about free swim lessons in their building, and complete as many registrations as possible. We will provide a link to a registration form that you can access from phone or tablet, and backup paper copies if you hit an area of no-wifi.
- Our first apartment complex canvasing will be June 15, 6:00pm – 8:30pm at Arbor Crossing. First half hour will be orientation. Meet in front of leasing office.
- The second apartment complex canvassing will be Friday June 29, 6:00pm to 8:30pm, complex TBA.
- The third will be Friday July 13, 6:00pm to 8:30pm, complex TBA.
- Come with a group of volunteers to canvas the building where we will be hosting swim lessons: tape fliers to doors, talk to residents about the importance of swim education, get them excited about free swim lessons in their building, and complete as many registrations as possible. We will provide a link to a registration form that you can access from phone or tablet, and backup paper copies if you hit an area of no-wifi.
- Phone registrars (in English, Swahili, Arabic and Somali) – 3-4 people total
- For apartment residents who aren’t home when we canvas a building, we need registrars to take calls from people who got our outreach fliers, and transcribe children’s registration information. We need English speakers, as well as Swahili, Arabic and Somali speakers. We can help you set up a Google # to mask your private number (which also allows you to switch off incoming calls when lesson registration is over). You will need to talk to callers and transcribe information into an on-line registration form. Calls may come in at any time; be prepared to scan for callers who don’t leave messages and call them back to complete registrations.
- Pool deck sign in / crowd control / swim suit distribution -- 4 people for each 2 week cohort
- Reporting to the RISE site coordinator, we need volunteers to help guide child participants to where to be (and not to be!). The kids are so enthusiastic, it is a little hard to get them out of the water and off the pool deck, for the next group of lessons to start. Bring your best theater voice and all your patience to help us with crowd control (we will have both a firefighter in uniform to talk about fire safety and…. Popsicles!.... for the first lessons to pull kids away from the pool when their lesson times finish for the first few days). If you can, please commit to a full 2 week volunteer window.
- M – TH, 3:30pm to 6:30pm from July 9 to July 19 (Arbor Crossing)
- M – TH, 3:30pm to 6:30pm from July 23 – Aug 2 (TBA)
- M – TH, 3:30pm to 6:30pm from Aug 6 – Aug 16 (TBA)
- Reporting to the RISE site coordinator, we need volunteers to help guide child participants to where to be (and not to be!). The kids are so enthusiastic, it is a little hard to get them out of the water and off the pool deck, for the next group of lessons to start. Bring your best theater voice and all your patience to help us with crowd control (we will have both a firefighter in uniform to talk about fire safety and…. Popsicles!.... for the first lessons to pull kids away from the pool when their lesson times finish for the first few days). If you can, please commit to a full 2 week volunteer window.
- In-pool instructor assistants: 5 people each cohort
- The YMCA is providing instructors and life guards for RISE Together. But extra hands in the water in each small group would be very helpful! You don’t have to be swim instruction or life guard certified (you’ll be surrounded by certified instructors and life guards). But your help in epeating instructions and guiding kids will make the instructors’ and life guards’ jobs easier. If you can, please commit to a full 2 week volunteer window: students and instructors in our last cycle reported that it was a much better teaching environment when they worked with the same volunteers and same kids consistently for 2 weeks.
- M – TH, 3:30pm to 6:30pm from July 9 to July 19 (Arbor Crossing)
- M – TH, 3:30pm to 6:30pm from July 23 – Aug 2 (TBA)
- M – TH, 3:30pm to 6:30pm from Aug 6 – Aug 16 (TBA)
- The YMCA is providing instructors and life guards for RISE Together. But extra hands in the water in each small group would be very helpful! You don’t have to be swim instruction or life guard certified (you’ll be surrounded by certified instructors and life guards). But your help in epeating instructions and guiding kids will make the instructors’ and life guards’ jobs easier. If you can, please commit to a full 2 week volunteer window: students and instructors in our last cycle reported that it was a much better teaching environment when they worked with the same volunteers and same kids consistently for 2 weeks.
- Water Safety Lecturers – 5 people
- In addition to the lessons in apartment complexes, RISE Together will be fanning out to a variety of refugee faith and summer school groups, to deliver a one-lesson water safety class. The YMCA has provided the class content, and we’ll orient you to best teaching practices and audience participation exercises. But we need volunteer teachers to help teach, since we are putting together a large list of outreach opportunities at which to teach. IRC Staff will come with you, and be available to discuss other IRC services at the same time as the water safety class. Evening and weekend availability preferred, specific dates TBD.