Warner Robins groups try website for volunteering

For anyone who has ever wanted to volunteer but didn’t want to make a commitment, there is a website that can help.

By day Mike Rowland is curator of the Museum of Aviation, but on his off time lately he has been working on a project aimed at linking volunteers with groups that need them.

The free website is www.justserve.org. If people are looking to volunteer, even on the spur of the moment, they can go to the site, type in their ZIP code and see a list of volunteer opportunities in the area.

All they have to do is show up, work as long as they want and leave.

Likewise, any nonprofit organizations, including churches, can go to the site and put in information about a volunteer opportunity. It can even be a one-time event.

“The idea is to have opportunities for a variety of people within the community so everyone can find something that resonates with them,” Rowland said.

The website is available for any community nationwide, but Rowland said Warner Robins is the first in Middle Georgia to begin using it. His first mission has been to let organizations know about it so that some events can get listed on the site.

Now that some have signed up, he wants potential volunteers to know about it.

“We are just now working to tell people about it,” he said. “The idea is that people can give as little or as much time as they want.”

The first group to use it was Keep Warner Robins Beautiful, which enlisted nearly 4,000 volunteers in projects last year that included litter pickup, cemetery cleaning and others. Director Debra Jones said she was immediately interested when Rowland told her about it. Aside from potentially getting new volunteers, she sees it as an easy way to keep current volunteers informed about the organization’s activities.

Jones listed her first project on it in February. She didn’t really need volunteers for that event, but she wanted to try it out, and two people called. She now has several projects listed.

“I’m thrilled with it,” she said. “As soon as I heard what it was and how it works, I got really excited.”

The website is a service of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as Mormons. Rowland, a member of the church, said the website in no way promotes the church and is intended only as a service project. A brochure he is passing out only mentions the church in fine print at the bottom of the last page.

Currently the website lists 15 volunteer opportunities in Warner Robins. Some, such as Meals on Wheels, require some pre-screening. But the site includes several projects for which people can just show up.

Jones said most of the volunteers she has lined up through the website have come from the local Mormon church because they are about the only ones who know about it.

Rowland said he didn’t know about it until late last year. He spent Christmas in Gainesville, Florida, with his in-laws and decided to give the website a try one day when he had some free time. He found a food bank that needed help that day, so he showed up and spent some time sorting cans.

When he came home and told his family about it, they decided that whenever they were Gainesville, they would go work at the food bank as a family.

That made Rowland realize the website’s potential to help others.

“As I reflected on that experience, I just thought ‘I want to bring that experience to my town,’” he said.

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 8:48 AM with the headline "Warner Robins groups try website for volunteering."