First, sign up to attend a Volunteer Welcome. During the Volunteer Welcome, you will provide information that will help us match you with upcoming volunteer opportunities that suit your interests, expertise, and schedule.

We host Volunteer Welcomes on the third Thursday of each month. Please visit our sign-up page to view upcoming New Volunteer Welcome dates and register to attend.

In addition to the Volunteer Welcome, volunteers are required to attend one “Coach Approach to Mentoring” training session. These trainings focus on effective communication and active listening skills to facilitate happy, healthy and strong relationships between youth participants and volunteers.  “Coach Approach” to Mentoring is explained in depth during the Volunteer Welcome.

Depending on the upcoming needs and opportunities, as well as your availability and interests, it can take 1-3 months to begin volunteering. During the Volunteer Welcome, you’ll learn about current and upcoming volunteer opportunities. Within the following week, we ask you to submit a form detailing the JIT services you are interested in, along with the skills and experience you would like to leverage as a volunteer. Once this is submitted, we’ll get you signed up for a Coach Approach to Mentoring (CA2M) training, which is the next step to getting involved. After you have attended a CA2M, you’ll be invited to volunteer at the next opportunity that matches your interests, experience, and availability.

Volunteer roles vary and time investment depends on the specific volunteer role you sign up for opportunities can range from year-long cohort programs with bi-weekly workshops and one-on-one meetups (as many as 9 hours per month), to event day registration (as little as 2 hours on a single day of the year). At our Volunteer Welcome, you’ll learn about the various volunteer roles, the time of year they are offered, and the time commitment required.

Absolutely! Many of our volunteers take on multiple roles and/or engage with several JIT services.

Volunteers are valued members of our growing community. We welcome and appreciate your time, skill and ideas as we evolve to meet the needs of our youth.

We love your desire to support our organization, but all our volunteer opportunities are for those 18 and older. Additionally, we ask that all our Coaches are at least 24 years old as our youth participants range from 18-26 years old.

Thank you for your interest in volunteering with us! I wanted to let you know our volunteer opportunities are for San Diego County residents only. Do you plan to move to the area soon? I’m happy to send you additional information about volunteering but wanted to give you a heads up in advance, just in case.

Thanks for reaching out and thinking of us with volunteering! While you are more than welcome to sign up to volunteer with us, please note that we don’t sign off on any community, student, or court-ordered volunteer hours. This is because we can’t guarantee the required amount of volunteer hours will be met in the time limit given, and to ensure our volunteers are intending to stay connected for at least 6 months to a year, if not longer. Please let us know if you are still interested in volunteering. Of course, we completely understand if you need to consider alternative options. Thank you.

Yes. In 2014, Points of Light certified JIT as a Service Enterprise, defined as an “organization that fundamentally leverages volunteers and their skills across all levels of the organization to successfully deliver on its social mission.” This means we count on volunteers to provide the resources, relationships, and expertise that deliver our much-needed services to transition age foster youth while building organizational capacity.