Community Support Connections puts out call for volunteers in region

Community Support Connections, which service over 7,000 people around the region yearly, put out a call for volunteers to help in Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo.

The organization is integral to providing different services like Meals on Wheels. With over 300 meals a day flying out the door, the local non-profit is looking for new volunteers to help with deliveries.

Each volunteer takes a route of about 10 to 12 houses a day. Deliveries are made on weekdays between 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and volunteers can commit to one or more days a week.

Executive Director, Will Pace, said the organization gets hit hard this time of year because they see volunteers take time off.

“There are peak periods of the year where services go up and our number of available volunteers go down, so that’s really where we see the greatest pressure and then we have the greatest need for new volunteers to come in and help,” said Pace.

“We have about 450 volunteers right now, its an amazing group of people but because of how many programs we run and how many volunteers we need, were always looking for more.”

Community Support Connections needs volunteers to help service other programs for older adults or people with different abilities such as its transportation program and instructors for fitness classes.

Pace added the program needs volunteers to stay operational.

“For all of our volunteer roles we try to customize them to what’s the availability of the volunteer, so if they let us know when thy have time and what they are interested in, we find a way they can connect to our seniors and make a big difference.”

He mentioned they also provide mileage subsidies to volunteers who are out on the roads.

The non-profit is also seeking donations as it gets some funding from the Ministry of Health but Pace said most of the funds come from community donations.

Anyone planning on volunteering can give them a call at (519) 772-8787 for more information.