Volunteer organizations across Colorado are seeing a big drop in people willing to help. via Meghan_Lopez
The drop has caused groups to scramble to figure out how to provide the same services with less help. Needs have also increased greatly for many organizations in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.At Volunteers of America, everyday — snow or shine — there is a routine. Volunteers spread out across the state to deliver meals to those who need a helping hand. The meals are meant to be supplemental nutrition but often times the food is much more than that.
Like a lot of other charitable groups, VOA has seen a sharp decrease in people willing to sign up to help. Currently, it’s down roughly half of the volunteers it relied on pre-pandemic. Other volunteers might also call out sick from their route occasionally, leaving the program scrambling to find a backup to deliver the meals.
The organization has done what it can to try to recruit new faces to join its ranks. It has sent out an email blast and even made recruitment videos, which generated a big response. For decades, many smaller, mountainous or rural fire districts have relied on volunteers to staff their stations. “People have less time to commit to the volunteer fire service. And the demands for that time have increased significantly over the past 30 years,” Halstead said.
“That call volume increasing by almost 100% means that we're adding that strain on our volunteers on a day-to-day basis,” Halstead said. However, the downside is the consolidation would create a very large fire protection district of about 400 square miles in all. Greenfield was hired about a year ago to help build up the program within the Erie Police Department and recruit more volunteers.
In her previous position, Greenfield says she would get multiple applications over the course of weeks for the position. Now, she’s lucky if she even gets a few people to volunteer. She blames the COVID-19 pandemic for causing people to reassess their priorities and how they use their time. With baby boomers, the COVID-19 pandemic has kept some home fearing for their health and safety, but also the economic stress that inflation is causing across the state.
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