‘Southington Serves’ Connecting Youth and Volunteer Opportunities

When Sarah Lamb began looking around the community to fulfill volunteer hours for programs such as CCD, she didn’t know where to turn or who to contact to make it happen. Finding an opportunity was frustrating and took as much time as the volunteer work did.

Rather than let the frustration get the best of her and give up, however, the Southington High School freshman took her concerns to town officials with the hope of creating a simple place to connect businesses, non-profits and the youth of today to help make Southington a better place.

And with the help of the town and the Southington Town-wide Effort to Promote Success, ‘Southington Serves’ was born.

“Southington Serves is a volunteer opportunity website designed by youth, for youth,” Lamb said at a Southington Town Council meeting late last month.

Evelyn Ciaburri, STEPS assistant, said the site has been live for a little more than month and already they have been able to compile multiple opportunities for youth – many which are open to more than just one volunteer – with the site currently housing nine different volunteer paths for the town’s students to choose from.

The site was designed in partnership with the town’s IT department and Lamb, who developed the idea while applying to be a member of the STEPS Youth Advisory Board, helped oversee the design and even created the logo for the organization.

The site is maintained by the town and should STEPS cease to exist for any reason, it will be maintained to continue providing youth volunteer opportunities, she said.

“The neat part of all this, the opportunities we are seeing are for groups on people,” Ciaburri said. “Students are able to volunteer with their friends and do things that matter and will benefit the entire community, such as helping clean up the trails at Camp Sloper or working with Bread for Life here in town.”

The program also serves to help provide opportunities designed to prevent destructive decisions and enhance self-confidence through use of youth as a resource and service to others, assets number 8 and 9 in the STEPS Asset Building Community program.

With everything now operational, STEPS Youth Prevention Coordinator Kelly Leppard said the goal now is to get youth involved and looking at the site while also convincing business owners and community leaders to take part in providing appropriate opportunities to help build the leaders of tomorrow.

“The biggest goal now is to get students to visit and use the site. If we can do this, it becomes a resource with unending possibilities,” Ciaburri said.

For more information as a volunteer or to become a participating business, visit the website by clicking the link provided.

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