Volunteering

Volunteers are an integral part of the LLRC directive. From its inception the centre and board of directors has accomplished staffing and running the links solely through the support of volunteers. Many volunteers have been with the centre since its opening.

A volunteer chooses what day they will attend and for how many hours. They can be retired or students seeking community hours. We interview each volunteer and invite them to settle in working where they feel most self-assured or we encourage venturing out and learning a new skill.
We welcome volunteers of all ages.

Volunteer Opportunities:

• Family Fun Fridays:
• Operate the canteen
• Help children learn and play games
• Supervise children at play
• Tutoring (Mondays from September to May; three days/week during July & August):
• Assist children to learn reading and/or math skills
• Reading Drop-in (Saturdays):
• Read to children
• Have children read to you

Gallery of Volunteers

In order for this work to carry on and be carried out from week to week an important ingredient must always be present. This ingredient comes in a variety of sizes, ages and stages of both life and academia. In order to meld this set of ingredients into a working group of steadfast volunteers one must always extend a handshake of welcome and a pat on the back for gratitude. To all at Links we shake, we pat, and we thank you for your selfless love of getting what needs to be done, accomplished for the well-being of others.
Melanie has been growing right alongside Links since its inception. It is hard to imagine that she was 9 perhaps ten when she started and now at 12 going on thirteen she is about as much apart of the crew who work there as the sign we hang out is. Melanie brings a great deal of character to the centre. A leader in her own right she has been instrumental in ensuring that others her age are afforded similar opportunities.

A Links volunteer is always interviewed and trained - to find out where they will feel the most comfortable.....

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take...but by the moments that take our breath away," -Anonymous

* See News at the bottom of this page for news stories on our volunteers

Melanie:

Initially Melanie was on hand to shelve and organize books but eventually she stepped out of that role and began poking ever so subtly into other areas while she honed out a niche for herself. Eventually she decided to raise funds for the centre by walking in the Mayors Walk. She raised an impressive amount over $500 dollars. The following year she reentered the walk and set a goal of doubling her past efforts. Triumphantly she handed the Mayors Walk organizers a little over a thousand dollars and a percentage of that went to Links again.
Not surprisingly given her goal setting nature, she decided that two years of the Mayors Walk was enough for her and decided to embark on her own fundraising adventure. This became known as Authors in Action and required two years of her dedication. First, she wrote to Author requesting that they send her an autographed item that she could then auction. As her plan developed she then solicited appearance from area authors and convinced her peers to join her in a read a thon.
Her idea for the read a thon was to raise a personal dollar amount to fund the centers literacy programs, LAP and READING ROCKS, while reading for two hours during the read a thon because they could. Her goals were to raise a hundred dollars for every year she was alive and she raised a good 70 dollars over the 1200 she was seeking, to encourage her peers to strive for similar goals, they did raising another 700 dollars amongst themselves and to shop for literacy items. She did spend 500 of the money she raised on books from Scholastic ordered through her school which in turn helps the school with free gifts from scholastics.

Melanie volunteers in many other areas of her life and on a weekly basis contributes 6 volunteer hours to links. This young lady was honored recently with the Ontario Junior Citizens Award which many Links staff got to see so we invite you to share in this proud moment for us by looking at the bottom picture.

 

Lauren:

Lauren is a student at a local private school and has also been a longstanding volunteer. Lauren possessed a keen understanding of the flow and ebb of the centre and wanted to contribute in a way that would allow her to be creative independent and excited about what she was doing while at the same time completing her Duke Award hours. Long after her hours were completed Lauren is still a vital and energetic presence in the office having taken on the lead role in the organizational structure of the holdings.

Beth:

Beth came to us in need of support, guidance and the security of knowing she could be herself while completing community volunteer hours. Her hours were soon completed and having enjoyed her involvement with us she decided to stay on and do her school hours, then her Cadet hours and she has just never left.
We feel very encouraged to be allowed the privilege of walking alongside Beth as she enters young adulthood with strong support from her placement. Beth has accomplished many projects at the centre including the coloring of the site map for Reading Rocks and the management of the volunteer crew for a year. Beth continues to help in many ways and is a cheerful contributor to the ongoing needs at the centre.

Susanne:

Susanne will probably never forget her interview. She was invited in to the directors home by a foster child who didn't know yet what to do after you let a visitor in. An hour passed while she waited in the living room and was finally interviewed by the astonished director who had no idea of her arrival. It got better though as she settled in and found that her teaching days were not over. Having made many kits in her professional undertaking Susanne was a key player in meting out advice on kit fulfillment and scope and sequence questions. She is a Wednesday volunteer working along side Pat in many different capacities.

Pat:

Pat started on Wednesday for two hours in the very early days of the office set up. Her desk has moved so many times that initially she had to over come the repeated obstacle of finding the work she had left behind form the past week. Eventually though as things settled Pat not only could find her work more readily but she became adept at setting aside her ongoing data base entries to help in some of the more mundane tasks of the library such as dusting the bookshelves or helping with a mailing.