Written by Aaron Rubin, Guilford Courier

Guilford residents looking to volunteer in their community now have a new way to connect with local organizations that need their help.

The Guilford Foundation has launched Guilford Volunteers, an online service that brings together volunteer opportunities from 47 nonprofits in up to 16 categories. The service is available at guilfordvolunteers.org.

The creation of Guilford Volunteers follows a similar initiative started two years ago by the Branford Community Foundation. According to Liza Petra, the Guilford Foundation’s executive director, the idea stemmed from “two members of the Branford community who were trying to figure out an easier way to connect people who wanted to contribute their time and energy with organizations that needed volunteers.”

Options range from the Women and Family Life Center to the Guilford Parks and Recreation Department, while other organizations include small nonprofits in Guilford that “don’t have necessarily robust staff to be able to have their own volunteer coordinator or their own,” Petra said.

“We wanted to offer this platform as a way to help them fill needs for any sort of volunteer activities they have,” she added. “Whether it’s a painting job, raking, Meals on Wheels, someone at the high school [who] has to fill their 20 hours of community service – they can go on to this site and learn about the organizations and then connect with those organizations.”

After identifying an organization they would like to support, volunteers can go through the organization’s necessary vetting and training before getting started.

Pam Miller, the foundation’s marketing and communication specialist, said Guilford Volunteers provides another avenue for residents to support the community beyond making monetary donations to the foundation.

Miller said the foundation facilitating connections between volunteers and organizations “is such a nice complement to what we do because it actually gives a forum for our people, the community at large, to actually be able to give back.”

While the opportunities presented through Guilford Volunteers are “super hyper local and focused on our community,” Miller said, there are also opportunities listed on the website in neighboring towns. Organizations not based in Guilford but open to volunteers include Vista Life Innovations in Madison, New Haven Reads, and the Branford-based Community Dining Room.