Get Connected, our database of volunteer opportunities with agencies and programs across central Iowa, can help you find
the volunteers you need. Click below to learn more about how to enter your volunteer opportunities in to Get Connected.
As a Graduation Walk volunteer, you and a team, including a Des Moines Public Schools staff member, will visit the homes of middle and high school students with poor attendance. You’ll connect personally with the student and their family, collect information on their challenges, explain the community support systems available, and and encourage them keep going to graduation.
An online portal that connects individuals in central Iowa seeking leadership roles to nonprofit organizations that have opportunities.
Help kids build reading skills so they can learn and succeed. We have many opportunities to get involved in this effort: donate books, build literacy kits, read to children, advocate for summer programs, and more.
Mentor an elementary school student during the school year or summer as part of our READ to SUCCEED initiative. Each week for 30 minutes, you'll read a book and do activities that help build reading skills.
Join the fight against the barriers that cause central Iowans to live in poverty. Volunteers can join a work group that is working on one of the following issues: new Iowans, re-entry, food insecurity, child care cliff effect, housing, adult education and employment, education: pre-K through high school graduation, and transportation.
Hundreds of central Iowa four-year-olds are at risk of not gaining the skills needed to start kindergarten, and research shows children who start behind, stay behind. Read with children in the critical year before kindergarten, helping them build the pre-reading skills they need for a strong start in school. For 40 minutes a week, volunteers read one-on-one with four-year-old-students at early childhood centers in Des Moines.
Join the team that helps prepare taxes for thousands of low- and moderate-income central Iowans. Tax preparers are provided with the training and materials they need to become IRS certified.
A corporate giving garden is located on land surrounding a company's office and employees use volunteer time to grow fruits and vegetables that are donated to local food pantries. A garden can be a great way to engage employees in connecting with each other, taking a break from their desks, and giving back to their community all at the same time.
Host a literacy kit building event at your company. Literacy kits are used by reading mentors in the Power Read program and at early childhood centers throughout central Iowa to help students in kindergarten through fifth grade learn and love to read. Employees say that making literacy kits is a meaningful away-from-desk break that allows them to bond with co-workers.
Ramona Gaukel
Volunteer Engagement Officer
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United Way of Central Iowa is proud to have earned a four-star rating for 15 straight years from Charity Navigator, an American independent charity watchdog organization that evaluates charitable organizations in the United States. This record places United Way of Central Iowa in the top 1 percent of charities nationwide. Click the logo to review our complete evaluation.
United Way of Central Iowa has received a Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar, the world's largest source of information on nonprofit organizations. The seal is given to nonprofits who have achieved the highest level of transparency through disclosures, information made available to the public, and accuracy and frequency of updates.
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