National Volunteer Week hits home as local businesses and non profits give their thanks

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – Volunteer week is nationally recognized, April 16-22, and the ‘Volunteer state’ is no exception.

“So it’s really a community led and supported organization and we couldn’t do it without our volunteers,” said Holly Reeve, the Chief Development Officer at CHATT Foundation and community kitchen.

The Community Kitchen, who’s operation- just as many others- rely on the help of volunteers.

“We had, for example, 20,000 hours that volunteers contributed to us in 2022. We could not do this work without them,” said Reeve.

It is imperative to recognize that our community celebrates this week to show gratitude to all the volunteers, in large or small numbers, for their selfless acts that make a big impact within our community.

“Volunteers come in daily and help us with meal service in our community center. They help us in our sheltering and they help us in our thrift store,” said Reeve.

The President of several assisted living homes in Chattanooga, called Morning Pointe, said volunteers are the “unsung heroes at their care campuses.”

The senior living space’s Vice President of life enrichment, Amanda Baushke, said, “Morning Pointe teams have been working hard over the last year to recruit and re-invite volunteers back into our buildings post-pandemic.”

“During the pandemic, we were on the front lines still providing services. We were taking meals into the encampments, rather than having them come in here for meal service. So, we really had to modify our relationship with volunteers. We asked them, at that time, to come up with things that they could do at home or at work or at the church. To then make sandwiches for us or put snack packs together and bring them in to us so that we could take it in to the encampments,” said Reeve.

Reeve, whose been working with fundraisers for the community kitchen since 1991, says their volunteer program is primarily community led and they wouldn’t be able to help as many people they did without them.

Even though the Chattanooga Community Kitchen and Morning Pointe are both open to volunteers, doesn’t mean there aren’t needs for extra helping hands all throughout the Chattanooga area.

“If you’d go online and explore all the opportunities whether you want to get involved working with children or working in the thrift store or helping us out with our sheltering,” said Reeve.

Many organizations cannot give back the way they do without the help of volunteers.

Morning Pointe will host a volunteer appreciation beginning at 3 p.m. on Thursday, and the CHATT Foundation will host an event for their volunteers on Friday from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m..

To learn more about volunteering in the Chattanooga area, you can visit this website.