Olympic Community Action Programs

Retired and Senior Volunteer Program

What is RSVP? Program Background and History

1. RSVP is a nationwide volunteer program that invites adults 55 and over to use their experiences and skills to answer the call of their neighbors in need. They’ve managed households, been business owners and nurses, farmers and sales people, artists and executives. Now they are ready to put their unique talents and expertise to work in their own communities, and enrich their own lives in the process.

RSVP connects volunteers age 55 and over with service opportunities in their communities that match their skills and availability. From building houses to immunizing children, from enhancing the capacity of non-profit organizations to improving and protecting the environment, RSVP volunteers put their unique talents to work to make a difference.

RSVP offers “one stop shopping” for all volunteers 55 and over who want to find challenging, rewarding and significant service opportunities in their local communities.

2. The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program was created by Congress in 1965 as part of the Older Americans Act. This Act and RSVP was and is meant to provide older persons opportunities to give of themselves in order that they again may be, and consider themselves productive, needed members of society.

3. RSVP of Clallam and Jefferson Counties began in 1972 as a program of Olympic Community Action Programs and has served the community since that time.

4. Today hundreds of thousands of volunteers are participating in projects across the nation using their talents and also giving of their time in service to others.

5. In Clallam and Jefferson Counties the RSVP program supports over 700 active volunteers. Our volunteers are tutoring and mentoring children in schools, helping at food banks, senior nutrition sites and Meals on Wheels and working at fostering environmental awareness. They also volunteer at museums, courthouses, Chambers of Commerce, and a wide variety of other social service and non-profit agencies.

Who is eligible?

Those eligible include anyone 55 or older, that has turned in a completed registration form, and is volunteering in the community and reporting hours from established worksites to the RSVP Program.

RSVP Volunteer Benefits

1. The opportunity to use your experience and skills

2. The chance to learn something new each day.

3. The RSVP program provides excess liability insurance coverage and accident insurance for personal injury while traveling to and from or participating in a RSVP volunteer assignment. All insurance coverage is provided at no cost.

4. RSVP provides an annual RSVP Volunteer Recognition Luncheon.

5. RSVP will help with volunteer placement.

Giving anywhere from 4 to 40 hours per week RSVP volunteers help solve serious problems in their communities.

Sample Worksites throughout the two counties

1. Mountain View Elementary School : Diane Frame, Adry Davis, and I have launched a new mentoring/tutoring program at Mt. View School this fall. As many of you know there is such a great need for this in our public schools. It is our intent to match volunteers with just the right teacher and just the right students and do whatever is necessary to sustain the program. Magic happens when school aged children are connected with caring seniors and both parties often experience a bonding that lasts a lifetime. Once the program is established at Mt. View it is our intent to duplicate it throughout the district.

2. Food Banks: Latest statistics available through the US Census Bureau tell us that nearly 17% of the population of Port Townsend and the surrounding area are living at or below the national poverty level. In most all cases these neighbors are unable to supply their families with one of the most basic of Human Needs and that is simply Food. Volunteering time, energy and skills at one of our many food banks definitely will help meet this great need.

3. Habitat for Humanity: What is more basic than the need for shelter in the form of housing? Habitat for Humanity of East Jefferson County provides volunteer service opportunities such as helping with a mailing list, grant writing, serving in the furniture store, laying a home foundation or roofing a new home www.habitatejc.org

4. Senior Nutrition: Senior Nutrition programs throughout Jefferson County provide a gather place where ;our seniors may get a well balanced, nutritious meal for a very nominal price. These dinners also serve as a valuable social gathering for our seniors.

5. Working Image Olycap is a nonprofit organization that provides interview and job appropriate clothing AT NO CHARGE to low-income women who are seeking employment. One client states: “Amazing sophistication! I am more than outfitted and I feel so professionally and personally enhanced! Thanks a million”

6. Dungeness River Audubon Center : Here you’ll find hands-on programs and natural history exhibits which invite people to explore the dynamic landscape of the Olympic Peninsula. This Audubon center located on the Dungeness River in Sequim, offers science based environmental education focused on the conservation of birds, other wildlife and their habitats. The center is a high quality facility and is staffed with very knowledgeable help (Including several RSVP volunteers) who are dedicated to teaching young and old about how the environment sustains us and all of life.

7. Olympic National Park: Here our volunteers have the opportunity to perform a variety of duties. You may choose to be a greeter and an information source to the thousands of visitors to the Park each year. You may choose to help record data for the parks information department. Or you may also choose to be a part of the group of volunteers who keep the grounds and the surrounding trails in such beautiful condition. The volunteer coordinator for the Olympic National Parks has told me personally that they would be unable to continue their program without the help from RSVP volunteers.

8. Arthur D. Feiro Marine Life Center: At this volunteer worksite based on the water in downtown Port Angeles visitors are welcomed and encouraged to come learn more about local sea life. It is a particularly popular place for school aged children to have hands on experience in discovering things about the critters that inhabit the nearby waters of Puget Sound .

9.  Three Thrift Stores (OlyCAP Thrift Shoppe in Hadlock, The Golden Crafts Store in Port Angeles and St. Vincent De Paul also in Port Angeles ): At these three volunteer sites shoppers will find well maintained facilities with very affordable clothing and all sorts of household items needed to set up housekeeping and in some cases even very fine furniture.

10. Peninsula College Literacy Program: An extension or program if you will of Peninsula College ’s Basic Skills Department. It is dedicated to teaching reading and writing skill to adults who have yet to master these life needed skills.

These are but a few of the volunteer opportunities available to seniors in our community. We have many others and are also open to the creation brand new work sites that may better suit individual taste. You may talk with Bob about the process for this.

Financial Support for RSVP: Financial support for RSVP comes from a variety of sources: First a federal grant, secondly a small state grant funded by the state through the Department of Community Trade and Economic Development.

The balance of our annual budget must come from foundation donations and fundraising projects. Our big fund raising event for 2006 titled Dinner and a Murder was held at Fort Worden Commons on December 9th.   An evening of fine dining prepared by chef Jason Lee and an interactive dinner theater to solve the mystery of who done it was a huge success.

Click Here to access the RSVP Application. Please print to fill out form and either mail or fax to OlyCAP .

For more information contact:
803 W Park Ave
Port Townsend , WA
(360)385-2571