Opportunities From: Volunteers United

Host a book drive for the Books for Kids Program at Next Door. We accept gently used and new books that are age appropriate for preschool and kindergarten multicultural children. 

More than 15 percent of children in the United States live in poverty. On average, these kids have only one or two age-appropriate books in their homes. Sixty-one percent of the children in low-income families have no books at all. Your help can make a difference in the lives of these children.

Contact us to start your book drive today!  books@nextdoormke.org

WE DO NOT ACCEPT: reference books, encyclopedias, dictionaries or library discards.

Host a Move-In Kit Drive at your workplace, place of worship, or school and help families moving from homelessness to housing. A Move-In Kit can include:

However, there is no wrong recipe for a Move-In Kit. All household items are welcome and help families establish a fresh start. Please note that Hope House cannot accept furniture or large appliances due to limited capacity.

Why Your Drive Matters

At 6 years old, a significant portion of Brielle’s experience included being homeless. Brielle’s family had been without housing for a year, doubling up with family and friends and when that was no longer an option, staying in emergency shelters before being connected with Hope House and moving into an apartment. Shortly after Brielle’s family moved into the apartment, their Case Manager, Leslie, visited with a move-in kit of household items and cleaning supplies. Something case managers at Hope House can do with the support of your donations.

Brielle excitedly greeted Leslie, gave her a big hug, and as her family went through the supplies, she found the dish detergent and said excitedly, “and now we get to wash our own dishes!” Brielle’s excitement for a task many take for granted is a reminder of the power of your support - providing stability, dignity, and the comfort of home to families.

How to Host a Drive

Hosting a drive is easy and you know your community best. We suggest having solid start and end dates for taking collections, sharing stories like the one above, and leaning into the strengths of your workplace, place of worship, or community. Hope House can provide signs and speak to your group (when available). We do ask that donations be dropped off at Hope House (209 W. Orchard St., Milwaukee, WI) at the end of the drive as we have limited capacity for pick-ups. Schedule drop off in advance and we'll be happy to give you a tour and share more of the amazing work being done together!

Help support families in need by hosting a holiday focused food drive. Highest need items include sides for holiday dinners, breakfast products, pasta sauces, soup and stews. All non-perishable, non-expired food items will be accepted. 

Food Drives can be hosted at a time and location that are convenient for you. Reach out today to set up a time to receive your food drive bin and supplies. Your support will help brighten Milwaukee homes this holiday season! 

Kids go through supplies like you wouldn't believe and many of our family's struggle with the financial challenge of keeping their children fully supplied and ready to learn. If you can help provide supplies, we will make sure that every child has the supplies they need to be ready to learn. Supplies that we need include: 2 pocket folders w/ prong, Notebooks, Loose Leap Paper, Copy Ream Paper, pencils, markers, crayons, colored pencils, pink erasers, glue sticks, earbuds or headphones, index cards with lines, highlighters, dry erase markers.

Many pregnant women and new moms in Milwaukee County are in crisis. The WCS Maternal Health Improvement Team serves pregnant women, new moms and their families. Our team works one-on-one with women to support them as they work to achieve their recovery and related goals. This includes connecting them with the medical, mental health, and substance use treatment services they need, as well as working with them to find safe and affordable housing, healthy and affordable food options, clothing, transportation, and other basic resources they need to be healthy and thrive. We have found that new moms who take part in our programming are in significant need of diapers and wipes for their infants and toddlers.

If your team would like to make a difference in the lives of new moms and their children, please consider hosting a Diaper and Diapering Supplies Drive! A baby typically uses 2,500 diapers in a year.  Perhaps your team could consider sponsoring one woman with 2,500 diapers or even five women with a gift of 12,500 diapers!

Our moms will benefit greatly if they don’t have to worry about having enough diapers to keep a baby clean, dry, and healthy, and can focus on prioritizing their health and the well-being of their families. To host a drive or to learn more about how the WCS Maternal Health Improvement Team helps women improve their health and develop new life skills, please contact development@wiscs.org.

Support MCC families by donating to our diaper drive. Our Emergency Food Pantry serves many families who are in need of diapers and other infant needs supplies including wipes, bottles, baby food and more. All sizes of diapers are needed. 

To host a drive, please contact development@mccwi.org. 

Please help support homeless youth in the community by making their new homes whole! In our Transitional & Supportive Housing Program, we are able to assist homeless young adults ages 18-24 obtain housing and work on independent living goals with self-sufficiency in mind. Many of our youth enter into the programming with little to no household items and we can only provide this critical resource through the generous support of people like you.

Select this project to organize a workplace or community supply drive to help ensure that the Transitional & Supportive Housing Program is stocked with the household items that make our homeless young adults feel at home.

This project is open to any size group. Even one dedicated volunteer can make a huge difference for us with this project!

To learn more about the services that we provide the community, please visit our website, at www.walkerspoint.org.

Support Diverse & Resilient's mission to achieve health equity and improve the safety and well-being of LGBTQ people and communities in Wisconsin by hosting a supply drive for our anti-violence, community programs, or sexual health services! Various Items needed such as hygiene supplies, program / participant snacks, office supplies, etc. If you are interested in this opportunity, we will create an Amazon wishlist for you or your group. 

Help support Family Service of Waukesha by conducting a supply drive. Various Items needed such as art therapy supplies, therapy room supplies, office supplies, and play therapy supplies are needed. Please visit our Wishlist for items needed: https://a.co/aXxBsGc

Are you looking for a way to help your community with a flexible schedule? MCC is looking for community members to host food drives in support of our Emergency Food Pantry!

As a Food Drive Host, you will collect donations of non-perishable food items at your workplace, church, book club or your neighborhood and bring them to our Emergency Food Pantry. All donations are distributed to individuals in need who live on Milwaukee's southside. 

Food Drive Bins and Donation pick-ups are available upon request. Once you sign up, we will be in touch to share our current most needed items and set up a time to connect about supplies. 

Thank you for considering supporting those experiencing hunger in our community by collection donations in a food drive. 

Help start the new school year on the right foot for children in Milwaukee by hosting a school supply drive. We are in need of over 400 backpacks and school supply sets for students throughout Milwaukee. 

Items of greatest need are backpacks, notebooks, loose leaf paper, composition notebooks, pencils, pens, and folders. Items will given to young people who participant in our youth develop, community violence prevention and Muskego Way Forward Programs. 

We are looking for adult oral hygiene supplies to give out at outreach events we attend in the community where we spread our mission and teach adults about good oral health habits.

Specifically we are looking for:  

1.  Adult "soft" toothbrushes individually packaged not more than two brushes per package

2.  Adult toothpaste

3.  Floss individually packaged

If your organization is able to host a drive to collect these items for us, we would love to then engage up to five representatives from your organization to come to our clinic to assemble adult goody bags filled with the items you collected and learn about our mission. We will supply the bags.

We are looking to make 200 goody bags. 

If your organization would prefer for us to purchase the supplies, a donation of $1,000 would help us to purchase these items.

We are looking for kids oral hygiene supplies to give out at outreach events we attend in the community where we spread our mission and teach children about good oral health habits.

Specifically we are looking for:  

1.  Kids "soft" toothbrushes individually packaged not more than two brushes per package

2.  Kids toothpaste

3.  Floss individually packaged

If your organization is able to host a drive to collect these items for us, we would love engage up to five representatives from your organization to come to our clinic to assemble kid goody bags filled with the items you collected and learn about our mission.  We will supply the bags.

We are looking to make 200 goody bags. 

If your organization would prefer for us to purchase the supplies, a donation of $1,000 would help us to purchase these items.

The Milwaukee Christian Center (MCC) is a multi-faceted social service and neighborhood development agency that serves families, youth and elderly regardless of ethnicity, gender, economic status, race, religion or sexual orientation. Our programs and initiatives recognize the power of both people and place, with the belief that strong neighborhoods must include strong, safe, beautiful places and abundant opportunities for people to thrive.

We do this work focusing on four key priorities: housing, youth development, older adult programming, food security. 

MCC’s Food Pantry provides food to 1,000+ adults and children each month, and connects families to supports needed to become self sufficient. We need your help to support our community by leading a Food Drive of non-perishable foods and other basic needs items to share with our neighbors. 

Hosting a food drive in support of the MCC Food Pantry is a great option for any individual or group who is interested helping those in need in our neighborhood as your schedule allows. The MCC Food Pantry is in need of unexpired, nonperishable food items year round and we rely on the community to support our neighbors who rely on our Food Pantry. 

Please contact Andrea Grittner at agrittner@mccwi.org to arrange pick up or drop off of any supplies you may need for your drive including donation bins and posters and to coordinate drop off or pick up of any non-perishable food items you have collected. 

Help support homeless and runaway youth in your community! Each year, hundreds of youth in crisis find support and a safe place to stay at our emergency shelter for ages 11-17, but we can only provide this critical resource through the support we receive from members of the community like you.

Select this project to organize a workplace or community hygiene supply drive to help ensure that the shelter is stocked with personal hygiene items (a detailed donation drive list is available here) that the youth in crisis whom we serve often need when arriving at the shelter.

This project is open to any size group. Even one dedicated volunteer can make a huge difference for us with this project!

Help support homeless and runaway youth in your community! Each year, hundreds of youth in crisis find support and a safe place to stay at our emergency shelter for ages 11-17, and we can only provide this critical resource through the support of the community.

Select this project to organize a workplace or community supply drive to help ensure that the shelter is stocked with the household items that are used at the shelter every day, such as laundry detergent, tape, liquid hand soap, and paper, among a variety of other household, cleaning, and office supply items (a detailed donation drive list is available here).

This project is open to any size group. Even one dedicated volunteer can make a huge difference for us with this project!

Help support homeless and runaway youth in your community! Each year, hundreds of youth in crisis find support and a safe place to stay at our emergency shelter for ages 11-17, but we can only provide this critical resource through the support that we receive from members of the community like you.

Select this project to organize a workplace or community clothing drive to help ensure that the shelter has a supply of socks, shorts, underwear, and other clothing items (a detailed donation drive list is available here) that the homeless and runaway youth whom we serve often need when staying at our shelter. 

This project is open to any size group. Even one dedicated volunteer can make a huge difference for us with this project!

To learn more about the services that we provide the community, please visit our website, at www.walkerspoint.org.

The Silver Spring Neighborhood Center has a need for the following school supplies for roughly 300 youth ages 4-19:

Thank you for your interest in learning more about the Robyn’s Nest volunteer opportunity.  We appreciate your interest to volunteer to help us toward our goal to strengthen families and to promote overall health and well-being of children. Our agency is the state’s largest, not-for-profit provider of child welfare services.   Our primary mission at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin Community Services is to work with families to ensure the safety and well-being of children. 

Our organization hosts a basic needs repository called the Robyn’s Nest that strictly operates through the ongoing assistance of volunteers who help organize and sort incoming donations and help us ran annual drives to ensure needy families receive back to school supplies and Christmas gifts.  The Robyn’s Nest houses new and gently used clothing, hygiene products, infant items, toys, books and other household goods.  Robyn’s Nest provides these items free to the families within our foster care system as well as those identified to have unmet needs through Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

Host a “Drive” for the the Robyn’s Nest our onsite basic needs repository. Please contact Lona Long Velasco at 414-231-4820 to learn what items the Robyn's Nest is most in need as it varies from time to time for a variety of reasons.

For the Season of Caring our greatest needs are highlighted in blue. 

Parents Place, Waukesha, was established in 1983 as a local, grass roots response to the increasing problem of child abuse and neglect.  Parents Place believes in improving the quality of of life for all children and families through intervention, prevention, support groups and ongoing education with the Supervised Visitation Program, Community Education, Parent Support Worker and the Born Learning Program.  As a non-profit family resource center, we rely on individuals and organizations to allow us to continue to serve the families of Waukesha County.  You can help make that difference at Parents Place by hosting a Wish List Drive for Parents Place!  Thank you in advance for your contribution to our effort in making children safe and helping families bond together! "Children do not choose their past.  Together we can change their future."

Parents Place Wish List: