Here’s an idea for a holiday volunteer opportunity that might interest some Rotary members and clubs. Come and volunteer to help distribute Christmas gifts to veterans at New England Center and Home for Veterans (NECHV) located in Boston.
During each holiday season, the NECHV runs the Gift-a-Vet program. Gift-a-Vet is a gift-giving program that is much akin to Secret Santa; Veteran residents fill out wish lists of items they would like for Christmas, which are then matched to community supporters who purchase the items on the list and wrap them so that they may be distributed to each respective Veteran.
Generally 2 weeks before Christmas Day, these gifts start coming in and the NECHV recruits teams of volunteers to assist with registering and organizing the gifts, as well as distributing them to the resident Veterans.
Usually the Gift-a-Vet program can engage a small team of 3-4 people for a 2 to 3 hour time period. The structure is as follows:
• 9am-12pm: shift 1 (3 volunteers)
• 12pm-3pm: shift 2 (3 volunteers)
• 3pm-6pm: shift 3 (4 volunteers)
The gift collection and distribution week has been set for December 11 to December 17 (the date on which all gifts should be in). Any interested person should reach out to CJ Beck at NECHV to reserve a shift. charles.beck@nechv.org (p) 617-371-1749
Volunteering at NECHV would make a terrific holiday service project! Also, watch for more information for A Week of Rotary at NECHV happening in May of 2018 when District 7910 will partner with District 7930 (Boston and Northshore) to serve meals to Veterans in Boston for 1 week.