Meet our volunteers
Get Involved
Welcome To Housing has been successful because of the strong support from the community. In addition to individuals WTH has had support from and encourages involvement from:
- Businesses
- Houses of Worship
- Clubs and Civic Organizations
- Media: Print, Radio, TV, Social Media
- School and Student Groups
- Fraternities and Sororities
Volunteer Opportunities
Volunteer Steering Team-Meets monthly and oversees activities of WTH
- Pick Up and Delivery Volunteers-Help on an “On Call” basis to pick up donations and/or deliver donations to WTH recipients.
- Event volunteers-Help at events like the Goods For Good Drive, the Winter Whiteout Paper Drive and Home Basics Round-Up. Other opportunities like health/informational fairs come up throughout the year and volunteers help by overseeing educational displays.
- Community Events: Welcome To Housing encourages clubs and organizations to hold fund/awareness raising events in the community. In return for the support, Welcome To Housing can promote the club/organizations involvement through the many media resources in the Bangor region and provide pre-event publicity and promotion.
Internships
Last Fall, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity of taking ENG 416, Technical Editing and Document Design, with Kathryn Swacha. Dr. Swacha assigned my classmates and I a project where we would be working with Christopher Olsen, who is the founder of the Welcome to Housing Home Goods Bank, Inc. Welcome to Housing is a furniture bank located in Old Town, Maine. The nonprofit organization takes pride in giving back to their community by supplying toys, kitchenware, couches & chairs, household utilities, mattresses & bedding, gently used items and much more to families that are in need! Luckily enough, I enjoyed the work that I did for Chris so much last semester that I decided to get involved with his organization even more so over the Winter. I contacted Kathyrn about working for him and she was able to put in a nice word about me to Chris. The next thing I knew I wound up with an internship for this Spring semester! My majors, English and Media Studies, also played a strong role in this internship when it came to the writing aspect of interning. The topic that I mainly focused on in these past couple of months was all about giving back to our Veterans. I created a large spreadsheet that was filled with Veterans Organizations information all over the state of Maine. I also created both a letter and a flyer to send out to some of these Veterans Organizations. This is where being a double major comes into my favor because of all of the skills that I have obtained throughout my four years of being an undergraduate student-athlete (Cross Country & Track) here at the University of Maine. Our main goal was to make sure that we were there for the Veterans, when they were there for us in a time of need! So far, this internship has provided me with a plethora of all different kinds of opportunities. With the work that I did for Chris this semester, I was able to gain skills by working with some of his fellow coworkers who help run the organization. My favorite part of the internship was definitely getting to know the people who go behind the scenes at Welcome To Housing. I got to know the sweetest, yet strongest woman, Rocky. We were helping a family move their belongings out of their apartment, so that they could head back to the Middle East. Helping out this family with Rocky and a few others really opened up my eyes to how much of an impact it can leave on people! Overall, this internship was one of the most positive and influential experiences I have had so far. I would highly recommend others getting involved to give back to their community by finding an internship that makes you feel proud about what you are achieving with others! Here is more information on some of the work that I have completed during my time here at UMaine.