Volunteer Opportunities
Love Sandwich Program: Every Friday, volunteers and staff make 80 meals – a sandwich, chips, fresh fruit, veggies with ranch dressing, and cookie or other dessert – to deliver to UVA Children’s Hospital. We need folks here from 8 a.m. to around 10 a.m. to ensure that we can get everything complete and to the hospital before lunch. This gives us an opportunity to serve complimentary meals to not just our families but to all families that have a child in the hospital. This helps ease their burdens a little as they don’t have to go far away from their little one to have a nice meal.
Meals from the Heart: We try to have a fresh home-cooked meal every evening when our guests come home from what is often a stress filled day at the hospital. For this reason, one of our most impactful programs is “Meals from the Heart.” Businesses, groups, families, individuals and organizations come to the House and make a home-cooked meal for our families. Usually, the volunteer group for this Program plans the meal and provides the supplies. We have up to 18 families in the House at any given time so we ask that volunteers plan to feed between 20 to 24 people (exact count is provided a few days before the scheduled date). The best meals are those that will reheat easily in the microwave. Casseroles, pastas, soups, stews and the like seem to work well since families come in at all different times and get dinner from the fridge to reheat. Other than that, we recommend staying away from exotic or unusual meals. Good old comfort food is the way to go. The kind of meal you would like after a long hard day. We ask that all meals be portioned into individual serving containers – sometimes the volunteers are able to provide these but we do have some if needed. We have four complete cooking stations with pots, pans, casserole dishes, mixing bowls, utensils, knives, cutting boards – just about everything you would need to prepare a meal. We also keep salt, pepper and a few spices on hand as well as milk, eggs, oil and butter. If you choose to make a meal, I can best answer questions about the contents of the cabinets and fridge and the headcount a few days before the planned dinner. We ask that meals be ready to serve to our guests by 6 p.m. but since we ask volunteers to portion all meals and store them in our general use refrigerator, volunteers can come at any time to prepare the meals.
Hospitality Cart: The cart will run on Tuesdays and Thursdays on the 7th floor of the Children’s Hospital. The Cart offers coffee, tea, cocoa and water, as well as a variety of snacks and other items. Volunteers will need to be available either Tuesday or Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. We ask that individuals volunteer a few times per month, but if you have the capacity and are interested in volunteering more often, that would work as well. Because this Volunteer Opportunity is located at UVA Medical Center you will be required to go through the volunteer process with UVA Volunteer Services that will allow you to have access to the children’s floors of the medical center.
Pick Up and Deliver Breakfast and Lunch Donations from Local Businesses: We need volunteers to pick up weekly donations from local businesses that regularly donate breakfast and lunch food to the House. We currently need volunteers for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Wawa pickups are needed every Monday and Friday after 9:30 a.m. at the Wawa at Pantops (434-485-0344). Insomnia cookie pickups are on Monday (1409 University Ave – 434 205-3513) after 11 a.m. Starbucks (in front of Best Buy — 1617 Emmet St N – (434) 365-8297) pickups are also on Fridays. We usually ask the volunteer to call first to see if they have anything before you head over. Before the first pickup, we would need you to come by the House to get a hot/cold bag but after that we would switch out when you drop off each week with a fresh one.
General House volunteer: We have volunteer opportunities within the House itself. These are for projects that staff doesn’t have an opportunity to complete during the course of the day. Projects like organizing our kitchen area or cooking a meal that we plan and provide supplies and recipes to complete. If this interests you, we can arrange a time for you to come in each week and we will assign you to whatever needs to be completed – some weeks it will be kitchen work like portioning or prepping dinner, others we may have newsletter work like stuffing envelopes that needs to be completed, and sometimes we might need help with a special project or preparing for a special event. Basically, you sign up to be here once a week on a specific day and time and we assign you where you are most needed on that date.
Maintain Lawn and Outside Areas: Sounds like what it is. We have all of the supplies – lawn mowers, weed trimmers, etc. and we just need someone to come in on a regular basis and maintain the outside areas. This is a good project for a larger group.
Adopt the House: In this Program, an individual, group, family or business commits to providing essentials for the House for one week — perishable items like fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, milk and bread; cleaning supplies to keep the House bright, cheery and healthy; or basic toiletries, like soap, shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste for families that need them. Sometimes people that adopt the House choose to purchase needed items themselves and sometimes they donate gift cards or cash for staff members to purchase the needed items. If you decide to purchase the items yourself, I will provide you with a list of the items during the week you choose. One week we may need an extra gallon of milk. Another week, it might be supplies for dinner on a night we don’t have a Meal scheduled or fresh vegetables. It all depends on the needs of the House and the number of families in the House at the time. A typical week’s list would include items like milk, eggs, bread, fresh vegetables and fruits – grapes are a particular favorite, sandwich bags, aluminum foil, bathroom cleaner, supplies for a dinner or two (usually try to keep things fairly basic so nothing expensive here), snack items like chips, crackers and the like, bottled water and/or juices. If you have funds available after the Adopt the House Program, we always keep our wish list up to date with the most urgently required items on our Website.
Wish List Drive: For the Run a Wish List drive – you collect items from our Wish List at and bring them by the House. We are happy to provide a banner and work with you to make the list shorter by prioritizing most needed items.
Welcome Gifts: RMHC-C staff creates a Welcome Bag for each family that comes into the House. Thirty-One provides us with nice totes specifically designed for Ronald McDonald Houses. We stock them with essential items – a blanket for the hospitalized child, a stuffed animal, nail grooming or other grooming kits for parents, mints, coloring books and crayons or colored pencils, paper and pens for note taking, chapstick, etc. This helps us provide the extras that welcome a baby, pamper a mom, or take a little stress off a dad. Pacifiers, rattles, bibs, medicated creams, soft outfits, diapers and the like will bring comfort to a newborn and help mom. Rich lotions, lip balm, sunblock, sanitary items, nail grooming kits, slippers, socks or flip flops, a new brush or comb will give mom a lift. A harried dad can use razor blades, socks, some energy bars, the distraction of a book of crossword or Sudoku puzzles. And siblings can be placated with puzzles, craft items, small toys and action figures, a deck of cards, healthy snacks and books — no gum, play dough or nail polish, please! Collect items, package them in attractive ways if you like or just bring them as they are for us to add to the bags.
Special Events: These are one-time happenings – I usually email a list of volunteers interested in such happenings with a link to a Google sheet to sign up for each event. Please let me know if you would like to be on that list.
We usually start with a tour of the House and a meeting, if any of this appeals to you or you have ideas of your own, please feel free to reach out to Jake Sites at jsites@rmhcharlottesville.org.
