A new youth volunteer program is giving young people in Box Butte County and other surrounding communities a new avenue to volunteer their time to bettering the communities in which they live.
The program, which is in its infancy, has been planned since before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Angie Flesner, who organized the volunteer program through RSVP.
“There’s tons of kids, but there’s no interaction for them within our community on a volunteer basis,” said Flesner. “It was something I’ve been wanting to do for four to five years. It’s been a matter of finding funding and whatever else we can do to get it going.”
Randy Waggener, following his retirement from the City of Alliance, agreed to help Flesner in her mission, offering support for the program.
“We started early last year, having meetings,” said Waggener. “It started out as just the two of us, then I think there was three or four, because we put together a board, and we’re still short one or two on the board.”
The board is made up of RSVP members. People who serve on the board must be 55 or older, and serve in a volunteer capacity.
“What’s very important about the board is that it’s very diverse,” Flesner said. “We wanted to make sure that we got somebody from every background, ethnicity. Our purpose for that is, in building the program, and writing the by laws and the rules, regulations, what we expect, we wanted to make sure that we didn’t put something in there that was against someone’s culture. We wanted to make sure we were inclusive.”
Currently, there are two juvenile board members who are already doing volunteer work. The Valentine’s Dinner at the Senior Center was the first project for the program to undertake, enlisting youth to serve at the dinner.
“We’re hoping to get the kids who are involved to be talking about it and help us gain more volunteers,” said Flesner. “In the end, we hope to have as many kids as we possibly can help. We don’t care their background, or where they came from. We’re here, we care. We want to help the kids and we want the kids to help us. The bigger goal is to have them working with our senior RSVP volunteers as well. One of the biggest goals in the end is to bridge the inter-generational gap and interracial gaps. We’re hoping by having them work together to get to know one another, and just learn from each other.
“The reason kids don’t do things in our community is because they’re not asked,” Flesner continued. “When you put things in their hands and ask them to help you, it gives them a stake, a feeling of belonging. It gives them a sense of responsibility and they want to do good things for their community. You just have to give them the chance. There’s so many things they can do for our community.”
Waggener said the program will measure the participants’ hours served, providing metrics on the impact of the program as a whole.
“There’s a lot of youth volunteers out there already, we just don’t track it like we do for RSVP,” said Waggener. “We’re hoping to increase that number. By documenting those hours, for the Honor Society, community service is required, for scholarships, to get into college, so those are things we will be tracking. I’m big on volunteering, and that’s kind of a dying thing in the community, when you look at the service clubs that have folded up. The RSVP group is getting smaller and older. We’re trying to build that back up. That’s not the norm in the United States and the world, but we’re hoping to make it an exception for Alliance.”
Another benefit, Waggener explained, is that the program offers hands-on experience for juveniles to help them explore different career opportunities they may enjoy. They are working to identify more community partners to provide more volunteer opportunities.
Youth who are interested in volunteering are encouraged to call Flesner at the Senior Center, 308-762-1293, or email her at aflesner@cityofalliance.net. They may also visit their website at vya.duplie.com.
Waggener explained that the program has been funded its first year by the City of Alliance using ACE Funds, providing insurance, a new website and a banquet to honor the volunteers. Flesner expressed her gratitude to City Manager Seth Sorensen for his support of the program.