Volunteer Corps Connects 150 Yale Students with New Haven Service Organizations

Volunteer Corps is a new Dwight Hall initiative that matches Yale students with New Haven nonprofits, providing these organizations with a reliable, ongoing base of student volunteers. Volunteer Corps currently connects 150 undergraduate students with 12 service organizations whose missions range from after-school tutoring to elderly care to food access. Building off of Service Series, a project that previously connected students with nonprofits for short-term or one-off volunteer opportunities, Volunteer Corps will better meet nonprofit partners’ needs by offering ongoing volunteer support instead. Alessandra Pappalardi ’27 and Caden Diaz ’29 serve as Lead Volunteer Coordinators of the new service model, which kicked off this academic year.

“My job primarily pertains to connecting students with nonprofit opportunities, getting people involved in the greater New Haven community,” said Alessandra. “I spent my summer contacting different nonprofits in the [New Haven] area that needed regular assistance, and trying to figure out how we could coordinate a massive schedule, and also bring in a massive number of students who are interested in volunteering under one umbrella,” she added. That umbrella now spans 12 nonprofit partners, organized into five segments based on shared mission areas.

“We’ve bucketed some of our sites into general thematic service layouts… The idea is to promote a huge service community so that all of the after-school volunteer tutors get to know each other, so that all of the companionship volunteers get to know each other,” said Alessandra. The service sites are organized into five thematic areas. Sunrise Cafe, Loaves and Fishes, Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen address food access and other basic needs; Co-op After School, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and LEAP New Haven (Leadership, Education and Athletics in Partnership)focus on after-school tutoring and youth mentorship; Urban Resources Initiative, Farmington Canal, and the Dwight Hall Clothing Bin, focus on sustainability efforts like cleaning up garbage from public spaces and redistributing used clothes;the Salvation Army and Fellowship Place; focus on resource access and social servicesThe Towers at Tower Lane focuses on elder care. With these groupings, volunteers have a community of other students that are doing similar work, offering a space for support and reflection.

“We could fill 300 volunteer slots with unique students in a given week, so we’re definitely looking for more people to come help us and the nonprofits out,” explained Alessandra.

“I’m excited to build out the processes and structures for Service Series to have a strong, enduring, and sustainable presence in the Yale ecosystem. I hope to build out Series-wide systems that permit this, [incorporating] volunteer recruitment pipelines, volunteer onboarding, etc.” said Caden. In addition to the two Lead Volunteer Coordinators, who oversee the entire Volunteer Corps project, each of the 12 nonprofit partner sites have a student-employee serving as Volunteer Coordinator for that site. Each Volunteer Coordinator is responsible for working with the staff of their nonprofit site to schedule times for volunteers to work. Additionally, the Volunteer Coordinators serve as the point of contact for volunteers, providing their cohort with the organization and accountability necessary to have a structured volunteering experience.

The Volunteer Corps builds upon and supports existing volunteerism structures. “Each service site is actively responding to the needs of a community and is staffed by community members,” Alessandra said. “I don’t think that I’d have gotten to know the city as well as I have had I not performed service my first two years being here. I now very much feel like a community member, and it’s because of the relationships that I’ve made beyond the Yale walls,” she added.

Volunteer Corps exemplifies the Engage and Grow pillars of Dwight Hall’s Engage, Grow, and Advance program delivery model. By involving students with local nonprofits, Dwight Hall supports effective community engagement work through trusted community partners. Furthermore, by providing students with a structured opportunity to serve the New Haven community, Dwight Hall is helping to shape students’ character to value service.