The winter holidays are just around the corner. This year, Charlottesville has a huge amount of great volunteer opportunities for high schoolers to contribute to our community around the holidays. Volunteering your time and resources can help your neighbors in need, help you get service hours, and spread the generous holiday spirit to everyone in Charlottesville. Right now, the federal government shutdown has put a lot of federal aid initiatives in jeopardy or on hold, so it’s more important than ever to support people in need. We’re lucky to have dozens of worthy organizations in our city worth volunteering for, and this list can get you started with ideas about how to participate in our community this winter.

1. Charlottesville Toy Lift

For over thirty years, the Charlottesville Toy Lift has been collecting and distributing toys to local kids in need around the holiday season. Last year, they gave out over 4,000 toys. The Toy Lift accepts donations of new toys from anyone in Charlottesville, but the most fun way to help the organization is to volunteer your time. On the first two weekends in December, greeters and elves are needed to guide elementary schoolers through Toy Land to shop for their families. This is a great experience if you like working with kids and don’t mind wearing a Christmas-themed costume. Groups of family and friends are welcome to sign up for shifts together.

If you’d like to help more behind the scenes, the Toy Lift also calls for volunteers to pack and organize toys the week before. Sorters can move all the donated goods and decorate Toy Land. The only restrictions on volunteers is that everyone in your group must be over the age of twelve and test negative for COVID. For more information, check out their Facebook page or volunteer website here.

2. Piedmont Virginia Community College Garden

Throughout the fall and into the winter, the PVCC community garden is open to Charlottesville area volunteers who want to help feed the hungry. PVCC students started the garden in 2008 for their horticulture class, and over the last seventeen years, it’s grown into a community effort that sends produce to local shelters such as The Haven and anti-hunger resources like the Thomas Jefferson Area Food Bank. Donating to food resources is especially important right now, since federal food benefits such as SNAP are on hold while the government is shut down. 

High school students and families can sometimes mark out their own plots in the garden to grow any food they would like. The only requirement is that at least some of the produce must go to local organizations to fight hunger in our area. If you like gardening, sustainability, and donating food, the PVCC community garden might be a great place for you to spend some of your time this fall. 

The garden also accepts donations of supplies, including hand tools, seedlings, bulbs, and perennial plants. If you’re interested in helping out, please take a look at their signups here.

3. The Haven

One of Charlottesville’s oldest, best-known charities is The Haven. The shelter helps provide housing and food to people who need it in Charlottesville. For the people seeking shelter in our community, estimated to be around 220 this year, surviving and finding places to stay in the winter is very difficult. The holiday season is an especially important time to donate and volunteer for The Haven. 

The two main ways to support The Haven are donating supplies and your time. On their website, a wishlist is posted of food, toiletries, and winter clothes that residents need. Ideally, the supplies will be in bulk, but The Haven accepts most forms of their requested items. A bigger donation opportunity is their project to make cold weather packs for unhoused neighbors. You can drop off any of these supplies or packs during business hours at The Haven’s location downtown. Their one request is that you call the office at 434-202-4250 beforehand to let them know to expect you. 

The Haven also runs a daily kitchen for their guests. If you’re sixteen and older, you can volunteer to prepare meals for The Haven with an adult chaperone. You don’t need extensive cooking experience, since the main volunteer tasks are making eggs, brewing coffee, serving on the line, and washing dishes. Helping with the kitchen at The Haven can be a really rewarding way to volunteer. For more information about their service opportunities, visit their website.

4. Blue Ridge Area Food Bank

Everyone should have enough to eat. That’s the motto of Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, another crucial organization for thousands of people in our community as SNAP food benefits are running out.  According to their website, the food bank exists to “improve food security through equitable access to good nutrition and the resources that support health and well-being”. With your help as a volunteer, they can feed even more people and expand their programs this winter.

High school students and families can give their time to the food bank in a variety of ways. In their four warehouses, volunteers can sort fresh produce, pack emergency food kits, or join a mobile distribution route. The food bank is very welcoming to new volunteers, explaining, “Staff will instruct you about the project and answer any questions that you have”. Groups of up to ten volunteers are welcome as long as they sign up for a shift beforehand on the food bank’s online portal.  

5. Camp Holiday Trails

Unlike any other charity organization in Charlottesville, Camp Holiday Trails provides a year-round camp experience for kids with medical needs. It gives many kids a chance to get outside and enjoy nature that they ordinarily wouldn’t have, while feeling secure that their medical needs are fully taken care of. Camp Holiday Trails is a nonprofit, and the program relies on volunteers and generosity from the Charlottesville community. Over the fall and into the winter, they offer three-hour shifts for groups of all ages to volunteer.

Most camp tasks are physical – painting fences, clearing trails, and raking leaves are all common assignments in the fall and winter. Outdoorsy people are a perfect fit here. Camp Holiday Trails welcomes volunteers for one-time or recurring shifts, so if you’re interested in helping out consistently, their website offers an option to book weekly or monthly stints. More information can be found on the Camp Holiday Trails website here.