Besides offering its own programs, Dartmouth Community Services also links students with a number of outside agencies, should these agencies better fit the desires of a student. Dartmouth Community Services currently provides referrals for the following agencies:
Alice Peck Day Hospital
Alice Peck Day is a local hospital committed to providing quality and personal care to the Upper Valley community. Student volunteers can help out in a variety of health care positions at the hospital:
Email DCS for details
For more information on organization:
http://www.alicepeckday.org/
Contact person:
Jane S. Darby
Coordinator, Volunteer Services
603/448-7456
COVER Home Repair organizes volunteers to work in partnership with low-income, elderly and disabled residents of the Upper Valley area to address their urgent home repair needs. Their projects include roof repair and construction, wheelchair ramp construction, floor repair, and basic weatherization. The organization's work is done almost exclusively from volunteers who comprise their weekend work crews, assist with mailings and building maintenance, and help with a variety of projects during the week.
Email DCS for details
For more information on organization:
http://www.coverhomerepair.org/
Contact Person: Nancy Bloomfield
(Nancy.Bloomfield@alum.dartmouth.org)
Dartmouth volunteers are an integral part of the institutional fabric and culture DHMC. Both patients and staff enjoy the help and support they provide. While helping the hospital, students gain information on medical careers in a state-of-the-art health care facility.
The following service areas are available for Dartmouth Volunteers (some have a waiting list):
Email DCS for details
For more information on organization:
http://www.hitchcock.org/
Contact Person: Linda Laros
David's House is a comfortable, supportive, home-away-from-home for families of children receiving treatment at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Since 1986, more than 2,000 families have come from 29 states and three foreign countries, including Russia. At David's House, these visitors have found new friends, a support system, and the opportunity to keep their families together during difficult times.
David's House is located in Lebanon, NH next to the DHMC.
Students volunteer for two hour shifts at least twice a month. Volunteers are needed in various capacities at David's House:
Email DCS for details
For more information on organization:
http://www.davids-house.org/
Contact Person: Karen Larimore
Good Beginnings
The Good Beginnings program is a home visitor program that gives help to Upper Valley families with newborn babies. The goal of Good Beginnings is to offer support to new parents through the first few months of parenthood.
Volunteers are matched with families and meet with them weekly to help them in their role as new parents. Volunteers pitch in and help out the new families and can assist parents in obtaining service or just be a friend to talk to. Additionally, student volunteers can provide child-care during parenting classes and clinics by reading to and playing with the children.
Email DCS for details
Good Neighbor Health Clinic
The GNHC provides primary health and dental care to persons with inadequate or no health insurance. All staff, including medical professionals, are volunteers. Students have the opportunity to learn first-hand about the issues of rural poverty, community medicine, and the health care crisis.
Dartmouth students are needed to help with admissions during clinic sessions (MWF, 5-8). Volunteer openings are available approximately every other week or once a month.
Email DCS for details
For more information on organization:
http://www.vccu.org/gnhc.asp
Hannah House offers assistance to pregnant and parenting teens. Volunteers may serve as tutors, child care providers, or to prepare meals for residents. Additionally, Hannah House often has opportunities for students to esrve in one-time home-improvement projects such as painting or yard work.
Email DCS for details
Head Start is a national program that provides comprehensive developmental services for low-income and learning disabled pre-school aged children as well as social services for their families. Head Start programs are operated under grants awarded by the federal government and have been serving children and their families all over the country since 1965.
Head Start volunteers provide one-on-one and small group interaction with children by reading to and with them, playing, leading educational games and activities, walking to the park, and participating in meals. Volunteers are also needed to ride the Head Start bus, comforting or just cuddling young children, and directing on-bus songs and activities. Additionally, student volunteers can provide childcare during the monthly parent meetings and trainings. Other assistance, such as working on newsletters and parent tutorials, is also needed.
Email DCS for details
In therapeutic riding, the movement of the horse's back is transferred to the rider's pelvis and trunk in a precise, controlled way. The effect of the horse's rhythmic walk offers benefits unattainable through traditional clinical therapies. High Horses riders are people with a variety of disabilities, such as Down Syndrome, autism, spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, learning disabilities, as well as emotional and behavorial problems.
Trained volunteers - dedicated community members who devote time, energy and a great deal of love - are the core of the program. Some serve as "sidewalkers" for students who need this assistance. Others serve as horse leaders to help riders that need help guiding their mounts.
Email DCS for details.
Upper Valley Humane Society volunteers provide stimulation and exercise to animals who are, of necessity, confined and sensorially deprived in cages. Volunteers help them participate in rehabilitation and reintroduce the trust and skills the animals will need to coexist in a human world.
Ways to become a Humane Society Volunteer...
Volunteer opportunities include:
Dog walkers * cat socializers * pet groomers * shelter meeters/greeters * clerical task assistants * and much more...
Email DCS for details
For more information on organization:
http://www.uvhs.org
Retirement can be a financially difficult time. Most seniors depend on a fixed income for survival and may have insufficient funds to meet costs such as medical care incurred later in life. The Outreach house helps alleviate this burden by providing an assisted living facility for lower income elderly persons. In addition to subsidized housing, residents also benefit from service and support provided by Outreach house staff and volunteers.
There are many ways in which volunteers can help the Outreach house achieve its goals:
The Outreach House is located on South Park Street in Hanover. Just across from the baseball field and Leverone Field House, it is a short and easy walk from campus.
Email DCS for details
School Volunteers
Dartmouth volunteers tutor in the Hanover School district at Ray Elementary School, Richmond Middle School, and Hanover High School. In addition, volunteers work with students in Lebanon at Lebanon High School.
Assist with:
Email DCS for details
The federal government maintains several medical centers across the nation to service the health care needs of military veterans. Because the VA Medical Center in White River Junction, VT is federally funded it employs a limited number of staff and welcomes the services of volunteers and work study students in the diabetes clinic, radiology, and pulmonary.
This need allows students who volunteer at the VA Medical Center to become more fully integrated into the health care providing process than is possible at other larger facilities in the Upper Valley. The VA Medical Center is excited about establishing lasting relationships with its volunteers. To insure that students are engaged in their service, the VA takes great efforts to place students in areas that most fit their interests.
Email DCS for details.
Vermont Adaptive Ski&Sport (VASS) provides recreational programs to individuals with disabilities on a year round basis throughout Vermont.
VASS believes that recreation provides a physical, mental, and social experience that is immeasurable in promoting self-confidence and independence in individuals.
Dartmouth Student volunteers help VASS by teaching and assisting the participants with activities. During winter term, volunteers teach adaptive skiing at Pico Mountain at Killington, VT - a 1 hour drive from campus..
Email DCS for details
