Click on any of the headers below to learn more about the following organizations, which are supported by First Church, either through benevolence grants or by volunteers from First Church:

• Ascension Tutoring Program
• Bailey House Inc.
• Brookwood Child Care
• The Caring Community
• Church of Ascension Food Pantry
• Church of Gethsemane
• Coalition of Concerned Legal Professionals
• The Elder Craftsmen
• Gilda's Club
• Habitat for Humanity New York City
• Homeless Shelter
• International Center in New York, Inc.
• Inwood House
• Lutheran Family & Community Services (Church World Service)
• Madison Square Boys & Girls Club at Genesis House/Robert F. Kennedy Apartments
• New York Presbyterian Hospital Adult and Pediatric AIDS Programs
• New York Women's Foundation (Women Helping Women)
• Partnership for the Homeless
• Presbyterian Senior Services
• St. Matthew's and St. Timothy's Neighborhood Center
• Sheltering Arms Childrens Service
• Statue of Liberty NM and The Ellis Island Immigration Museum Liberty Island
• Village Nursing Home
• WorkTalk¨
• YMCA (McBurney)

Church & Society is a standing committee of the Session
responsible for community concerns and programs; education
and discussion of matters affecting social, political and economic conditions;
development of socially needed services; and recommendations on benevolence spending.
For the names of the current Church & Society Committee members and chair(s), click here.

Volunteer Opportunities
Tutoring one-on-one one evening per week.

Agency Contact: Pamela Benning, (212) 966-4695

Bailey House Inc. 275 Seventh Avenue, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10001 (212) 633-2500 www.baileyhouse.org

A center for AIDS support that administers, among other programs, Bailey House, a group residence for homeless men and women who have been diagnosed with AIDS.

Volunteer Opportunities
Assist FPC members and members from Church of the Ascension in shopping for, preparing and serving Sunday dinner on fifth Sundays. Also, volunteers are needed for tutoring (high school equivalency and English as a Second Language), vocational education, planning and helping with special events/fund raisers and weekday assistance within our office staff and recreational programs.

Agency Contact: Tamesha Harper, Volunteer Coordinator

Brookwood Child Care 25 Washington Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 (718) 596-5555 (Ext.. 744) http://brookwoodchildcare.org

Community-based child welfare agency offering daycare, foster care, adoption and family services.

Volunteer Opportunities
Supervise children's room; teach children games, read stories, rock babies.

Agency Contact: Teresa Ybarra, Development Coordinator

Volunteer Opportunities
Teach classes, serve holiday meals, do clerical work, repair an appliance, do light shopping,
escort a senior to a medical appointment, walk dogs and take care of pets, deliver meals on Saturday.

Agency Contact: Paul O'Brien, Director of Volunteer Programs

Church of Ascension Food Pantry 12 West 11th Street New York, NY 10003 (212) 254-8620 www.ascensionnyc.org/volunteer.html

Collects food and distributes it two days per week, Tuesdays and Saturdays from 8:00am - 9:00am.

Volunteer Opportunities
Contribute nonperishable food items to church office at 12 West 11th Street between 9:00am and 5:00pm. Help distribute food on Tuesday and/or Saturday.

Agency Contacts
Tuesday Coordinator: Matthew Snow (646) 230-7833
Saturday Coordinator: Sheila Puopolo (212) 463-0617

Volunteer Opportunities
Tutoring, contributing to food pantry, helping to write letters to prison inmates, prison visitation (training required), helping with building maintenance, giving legal counsel, accounting services. Various items are also required.

Agency Contact: Mary Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Director of Community Life

Volunteer Opportunities
Our volunteers work together to meet some of the most pressing needs for legal recourse through an ongoing program of education, information and lay advocacy. Volunteers learn through on-the-job training to aggressively seek any available resources - with no strings attached - to fill a request for help. Volunteer legal professionals are needed, for example, to explain the law on specific topics at regular CCLP-sponsored "Know Your Law" sessions offered free of charge in low-income communities; CCLP also needs volunteers for advocacy, photography, writing, driving, office work, desk-top publishing for our magazine, the Verdict, phoning and learning organizing skills to fight for economic justice.

Organization Contact: Susan Prensky, Operations Manager

Volunteer Opportunities
Older Crafters for ECHO Project, Seniors to attend craft workshops and then teach the crafts at senior centers around NYC, computer-literate volunteers to help with mailing lists, help with sending mailings out periodically during the year.

Agency Contact: Janet Langlois, Executive Director

Volunteer Opportunities
Cancer survivors to facilitate new member meetings and to welcome newcomers to the community, professional social workers to handle individual interviews, volunteers to help with office work and fundraising.

Agency Contact
Harriet Mannheim, CSW, Program Director

Volunteer Opportunities
In addition to construction volunteers (which there is actually a waiting list for), Habitat for Humanity New York City needs volunteers in several areas that are important in promoting their cause: office help during the week, organizing special events, creating publications, fundraising and serving on various committees. Those experiences in speeding up the process of getting local government or the private sector to release vacant housing are also needed.

Agency Contact: Denise Nelson, Volunteer Coordinator (Ext.310)

Volunteer Opportunities
Overnight volunteers stay from 8:45pm to 7:30am, assist with setting up cots, prepare light evening snack and breakfast, cleanup. Coordinators work with volunteers on a weekly basis. Food shoppers buy food each week.

General Coordinator: Diana Pardue (212) 645-4387
Volunteer Coordinator: James Noll (212) 242-3662

Volunteer Opportunities
Share your skills and knowledge in a variety of ways including:
1) One-to-one meetings with member(s), as "conversation partners";
partnerships focussing on grammar, writing, pronunciation;
Advanced English and Mentoring also available
(these volunteers are usually native English speakers),
2) Leading a discussion group,
3) Teaching professional skills in a workshop and
4) Working behind the scenes to support our programs.

Agency Contact
Marie Raftelis, Assistant to the Director of Volunteers

Volunteer Opportunities
Positions include teaching computer skills, after school tutoring and coaching, hosting internships and career fairs, organizing field trips, guest speaking, participating in fundraising committees, holding gift drives, mentoring, babysitting, and recreational activities, i.e., dance and music performances/instruction. Opportunities are available in Manhattan, Queens, and the South Bronx. Male role models are especially needed for specific programs.

Agency Contacts: Gladys Carrion, Executive Director (x249)
Nicole Culver, Special Projects Coordinator (x239)

Volunteer Opportunities
Volunteers can assist in the following: making "Good Neighbor" contacts, collecting
and delivering household items, assisting in one-on-one English conversation.

Agency Contact: Richard Virgil, Church Liaison (x308)

Volunteer Opportunities
Helping to provide special event programs for children; donating items such as books, computers, software, etc.; helping with nursery school and helping teach children. Also help with homework, tutoring or mentoring.
Agency Contact: Jasmine Harry, Program Assistant

Volunteer Opportunities
Volunteers are needed at two sites for several programs with varying time and talent commitments. At the Chelsea Center for Special Studies (located at 119 West 24th Street) and the Center for Special Studies (located at 525 East 68th Street), volunteers are present at all clinics and perform a variety of tasks to support the medical staff. The goal is to create a welcoming environment for patients and their families.
Also volunteers are needed for the inpatient setting, which involves visiting patients and offering support to those who are hospitalized.

Agency Contact: Kathy Iacuzzo Sartorius, CSW (212) 746-4187

Volunteer Opportunities
While fundraising and grant making are its primary activities, the Foundation can use help in providing technical assistance and in supporting issues regarding women and girls.

Agency Contact: Miriam Buhl, Executive Director

Volunteer Opportunities
First Team, Furnish a Future, Network, Peter's Place, Positive Step, Project Domicile

Agency Contact: Rosie Schaap (212) 645-3444, x501

Volunteer Opportunities
Lawyers, doctors, financial advisers and other professionals are needed to volunteer during weekday hours to help educate members of PSS's church-based programs on such topics as elder law, health and fitness for the elderly, financial and investment issues for the elderly, etc. If you have special expertise in any of these areas, PSS would love to have you come and make a presentation to its members.

Agency Contact: Charmaine Massiah, Director Of Community Service

Volunteer Opportunities
Tutoring children one-on-one to correct a specific learning deficiency in reading or math. A short, intensified individual training session is provided, in addition to several optional group training sessions, so no prior experience is necessary. Assisting in children's library, organizing, shelving books and cataloguing, etc.

WEME Mainstream Nutrition and Health Center
A program of St. Matthew's and St. Timothy's Neighborhood Center, and a Meals-On-Wheels site, services homebound elderly on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Volunteer Opportunities
Volunteers are needed to serve as Friendly Visitors, who provide conversation and companionship to seniors who are isolated and often very lonely. An hour or so a week (for a minimum of six months) is all it takes to bring extra joy and light into the life of a senior friend. Meal Packing and Delivery Volunteers are also needed Sunday through Friday mornings. We have a special need for Christmas Volunteers to bake cookies and to help with packing and/or delivering holiday meals to our homebound neighbors. There may also be opportunities for volunteers to escort seniors to medical and other appointments and to assist with light shopping. The teenage program needs people to teach an after school activity, i.e., arts and crafts, karate, etc., to children ages 11-14. It also needs mentors for older teens, especially informal job counseling.

Agency Contacts: Rita Spano (Tutoring Children and Library) (212) 362-6750
Beth Mandelbaum (MEME Mainstream Nutrition and Health Center) (212) 874-3750 (x16)
(Teenage Program) (212) 580-4391

Sheltering Arms Childrens Service 122 East 29th Street New York, NY 10016 (212) 679-4242 www.SACS-NYC.org

Child care center, family day care, foster care, adoption.

Volunteer Opportunities
Assist in day care centers by reading, caring for children.

Agency Contact: Cordelia McNish, Day Care Coordinator (Ext. 850)

Statue of Liberty National Monument and The Ellis Island Immigration Museum Liberty Island New York, NY 10004 (212) 363-3206, Ext. 150 http://www.nps.gov/stli

A unit of the National Park Service, responsible for preserving and interpreting the history and significance of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Open to the public every day except Christmas Day. Includes exhibits, movies, research library and museum collection, as well as special tours and programs, museum programs, library, maintenance and administration projects.

Volunteer Opportunities
Assist with museum collections, archives, oral history program and public programs

Agency Contact: Diana Pardue

Village Nursing Home 607 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014 (212) 255-3003 (Ext. 237)

Residential nursing care facility for elderly Village residents.

Volunteer Opportunities
Help with leisure programs; transport for religious services and other activity programs;
friendly visits; escort residents to appointments; shopping for residents; feeding encouragement.
Special language skills can be helpful.

Agency Contact: Joann Celentano

Volunteer Opportunities
Help with grant writing and fundraising; letter writing; computer-literate volunteers
to help with setting up a database; help with PR and publicity.

Agency Contact: Marian Karpen

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