Volunteers
Intercultural, mutual friendships are the backbone of Neighbor to Neighbor.
It is our mission to connect newcomer immigrants with local community members. When those relationships have a balanced give-and-take, are intentional and agenda-free, and each member comes alongside the other, everyone thrives.
N2N Volunteer Opportunities
Welcome Project Teams
The Welcome Project fulfills the mission of Neighbor to Neighbor by facilitating friendships and providing education for both newcomer immigrants and local community members.
Craft'n'Chat
The Craft’n’Chat program is a regular gathering of immigrant newcomers involving English language support and social time. Volunteers assist with childcare, English lessons and/or crafts.
Driver's Education
Having a driver’s license gives a newcomer the freedom to thrive. N2N supports learning drivers through our driving simulator, on-the-road practice, and access to resources.
Fundraisers & Events Team
Neighbor to Neighbor hosts three events and three community outings each year. Volunteers are welcome to join in on the planning and execution of events and outings.
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FAQs
While we try to make our volunteer on-boarding process easy, there are some important steps to take to make sure that being a Neighbor to Neighbor volunteer is a good fit for you. Here is the general process you’ll go through before being assigned to an immigrant newcomer household:
- Sign up: The first step is to click the “Volunteer Today” button and fill out the interest form.
- Paperwork: You will be asked to fill out typical volunteer paperwork (code of conduct, release and waiver of liability, confidentiality agreement, etc.) to review and sign.
- Background Check: You will be emailed an invitation to complete a background check, which will cost $18.
- Meet with N2N Staff: You will be invited to meet with N2N staff on your own or with a team to ascertain your level of involvement and fit with the organization.
- Training: Before meeting with any N2N newcomer, you will need to complete our new volunteer orientation, either in a two-hour in-person group session or via recorded videos.
- Wait to be assigned! Often this happens right away, but sometimes it takes a few weeks to have everything ready for volunteers to dive into whatever they signed up to do. Be patient! We won’t have forgotten you!
Neighbor to Neighbor volunteers are integral to our mission to foster mutual relationships between local community members and immigrant newcomers. Some options we have for volunteering are:
WELCOME TEAMS: As part of the Welcome Project, most of our volunteers are part of a Welcome Team that is paired with an immigrant newcomer household. Members of a Welcome Team typically engage in the following activities with their newcomer friends:
- Spending time together as friends
- Helping to learn or practice English
- Providing transportation until driver’s licenses are procured
- Helping with driving skills
- Providing connections to community activities and resources
- Attending N2N Community Outings together
- Just being PRESENT
CRAFT’N’CHAT: A weekly gathering of immigrant newcomer women and their children. The women engage in English lessons and crafts, and the children have a snack and play with toys. Volunteers assist in setting up the room, making tea, preparing snacks, playing with kids, and helping with the English lessons and/or crafts.
DRIVING PROGRAM: Many of our newcomer immigrant friends need help learning to drive and getting the 50 hours of practice required by the state of Indiana for a new license. Several brave volunteers help their new friends with driving practice. We also have a driving simulator housed in La Casa de Amistad’s tech hub that can be used for practicing the rules of driving. Learn more about our Driving Program.
FUNDRAISING & EVENTS TEAM: Neighbor to Neighbor puts on three events per year: the Poker Run Fundraiser, the Welcome Dinner & Friendraiser, and the Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. We also host three community outings for current members of the Welcome Project each year. Volunteers are welcome to join in on the planning and execution of events and outings. If you want to help with a particular event or outing or if you want to be a permanent fixture on the team, let us know!
Most volunteers help out in our biggest program, the Welcome Project. We realize that you are busy and that welcoming new neighbors is not your full-time job! To that end, we have created Welcome Teams so that the work of welcome can be shared. A Welcome Team typically commits to walking alongside their immigrant newcomer family for 9-12 months, depending on the family’s needs. During that time, we ask that our Welcome Team volunteers commit to the following:
- Visit with the family an average of 1-2 hours per week: Ideally this would be true for each Welcome Team member, but it’s also fine if at least one person from the team is able to do this each week. Since our main goal is to reduce isolation, regular presence in newcomers’ lives is essential.
- Attend N2N’s Community Outings: Three times each year — usually spring, summer, and fall — current N2N volunteers, clients, and staff gather to enjoy an area of our city together. These outings have recently included visiting the zoo, attending baseball or soccer games, picking apples, and having a picnic in a park. N2N covers all the expenses so that clients and volunteers can just enjoy the day together.
- Attend two N2N All-Volunteer training sessions: In addition to the new volunteer orientation, there are two other trainings throughout the year, focusing on resources and mindsets that will help you maintain healthy boundaries as you welcome your new friends. Training sessions are a good opportunity to ask questions and get ideas from other volunteers. The dates for the in-person trainings are scheduled a year in advance, so mark your calendar when dates are given!
Walking alongside new immigrant neighbors is so rewarding, but sometimes there are moments of uncertainty and messiness. Through the easy and the hard, Neighbor to Neighbor will be right with you in the following ways:
- Case Manager: Each Welcome Team is assigned a N2N staff member as their case manager who will routinely connect with both the team and the family to make sure needs are being met and questions are being answered. Volunteers in the Driving Education or Craft’n’Chat programs will receive support from the Program Director.
- Educational Support: If people in the family you are working with need English or driving support, N2N has resources to help you to help them. The Program Director is always happy to meet with teams to strategize learning plans and provide more resources as needed.
- N2N Trainings: Our quarterly training sessions are designed with support in mind, covering topics like child safety, trauma, self-sufficiency, resilience in community, and mutuality. Attending training sessions is an expectation for all N2N volunteers.
The short answer is: either one!
In reality, though, the most effective Welcome Teams are those in which the team members already know each other and have connections to one another outside of N2N. If you are interested in being part of a Welcome Team, consider if there are other people in your life who might want to join you, then sign up together!
If that does not describe your situation, we will still welcome your application and will do our best to place you with a team that suits you.
For the Driving Education and Craft’n’Chat programs, you are also welcome to sign up either on your own or with a group of friends. The more the merrier!
We will welcome the time you can give us! If your time is quite limited, joining a Welcome Team is probably not for you, but we do have other options for giving the gift of welcome; namely, the Craft’n’Chat, our Driving Education Program, and the Fundraisers & Events team.
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Stories
Becoming a “neighbor” to an immigrant in my community has been so enriching and eye-opening! I’ve been meeting a few times a month with a young woman who is seeking asylum in the United States, and I have been so blessed to get to know her. So far our meetings have been one-on-one, but I look forward to introducing her to my family soon. She is smart, brave, and kind, even as she’s going through some difficult circumstances.
As I’ve been getting to know her, one thing that has surprised me is the realization of how little I know about some of the different places in our world. Prior to meeting my friend, I knew of her country of origin in name alone. After getting to know her and hearing more about her journey here, I’ve learned about the strife and violence happening where she came from and about the danger she and her family faced—and even now continue to face. It shocked me to learn about the situation in her home country because I haven’t seen any news about it here. It’s made me question how much I know about the world, and it’s made me realize how vital asylum is for so many who are vulnerable in their home countries.
I’m excited to continue learning from and growing closer to my neighbor as we get to know each other better. I also hope to be a good friend and neighbor as she goes through the asylum process and continues to explore life in the United States. I’m thankful for the opportunity Neighbor to Neighbor has provided me to enter into such a meaningful friendship!
I was so happy to find Neighbor to Neighbor after searching for ways I could get involved with immigration and new arrivals. We are fortunate to have this resource in our community—both for us and for those arriving. I had no experience with or previous exposure to newly arriving immigrants. But as I watched the refugee crisis unfold, I could only think what it must be like to arrive in a new place where everything is unfamiliar with no family or friends to lean on and to learn a new language.
Through N2N, I was introduced to Mohammad, his wife, and their five (now six) children. My husband and I provided some transportation, and then I began Saturday morning language lessons (something I had never done before) and helped with whatever came up.
It is no small task to obtain a driver’s license in our state, and Mohammad worked very hard to do so, but it took many, many months. In the meantime, he and his family were dependent on others to get them to the grocery store, pharmacy, doctor’s appointments, school when the bus didn’t come, outings, and so on.
Mohammad could speak some English, but the rest of the family was just learning. We shared photos of loved ones, ate meals together, visited playgrounds, and became partners in navigating their new community. Slowly, we became more familiar with each other, learning more about each other’s families and lives and sharing the daily frustrations, challenges, jokes, and tears. What a joy it has been.
I’ve learned that time spent with someone can be just that: time together. My need to have a task list, a plan, a time frame seems so much less important than just being together. Sharing meals is precious time. And it honors your guests to give them the best that you can. Taking the time to greet one another and inquire how you are should never be hurried over. A faith that is different from your own can teach you beautiful things and deepen your own faith. Traditions from other cultures can teach us how different we are and, at the same time, how we are very much the same.
Yes, I came to be a volunteer, but now, a year later, I have friends—friends who care about me as much as I care about them. Watching them progress and flourish is such a gift and a reminder of what we can accomplish when we neighbor with one another.
A group of friends and I have been working with a family of ten. Initially, I worked with the mother and introduced English phrases that we thought would be helpful. When it became clear how important her family was to her, we pivoted to working on words relating to family. She learned those and looked up at us, “Good?” when she correctly responded or recited, ‘Holding the baby,’ or, ‘The baby is crying.’
The difficulty in moving to such a foreign country is [an] impression I cannot shake. Language, school, shopping, transportation, doctors, all present obstacles. When it seems as though we are stuck with a problem, oftentimes there is some person or some organization, especially Neighbor to Neighbor, ready with a solution. There are, however, times when our systems do not work for them. With the challenge we face communicating with them, I can only think of their difficulty in understanding us and our ways.
Dignity is a lasting impression I appreciate, visit after visit. When the father is home, he carries our book bags into and out of his house. We are greeted not only with ‘Hello’ and ‘How are you?’ but with hot tea and often some other food. Once as a thank you, the mother painted our hands in graceful designs with henna. She sews the girls’ dresses, sitting on the floor in front of her sewing machine. They are proud to dress as they did in Afghanistan. They have brought with them a world of experiences and memories and knowledge and struggle.
They are a delightful family. It is my hope that each one of them can achieve a better, happy, productive life here. So far they are, together, facing their challenges. I marvel at their courage.
I would watch news reports from the violence and tragedy in Afghanistan or Syria and feel so bad for the innocent people there, and feel distant and helpless. N2N has enabled me to get to know — in a personal way — those whose lives have been uprooted. Global problems get reduced to individuals helping each other, at a level I can handle. And more than anything else, these relationships have meant great respect and admiration for the courage shown by those engaging a strange culture, learning a new language, finding work, shopping, driving, seeing a doctor, or walking into a school alone where they know no one and don’t even understand what’s being said. I’m grateful to be part of this hard and rewarding transition.
Volunteer Resources
If you’re already a volunteer with Neighbor to Neighbor, click the button below to view our Volunteer Resource Page.