Meet the great people behind the great programs and services offered at Ometz! Our colleague Janice Heft discusses Ometz Volunteer Services, and how you can get involved and help the community.

What is your work position and how long have you been working at Ometz?

I am Janice Heft, Manager of Volunteer Services at Ometz, and have been with the organization since 2009. This is the best job in the world because it connects me to people who are so generous of spirit who contribute their precious time to help others.

What volunteering opportunities does Ometz offer?

Volunteering at Ometz is usually in the form of a mentorship. We ask our volunteers to commit to forming and building a relationship with a client and to always act as a positive role model regardless of the type of intervention.

A mentor can be a big brother or big sister to a Jewish child, adolescent or even young adult. Each pair will meet minimally every two weeks and they plan their own activities, either an activity they both enjoy or the mentor will try to expose the child to something new. It is always easier to build a new friendship around an activity, and we encourage the pairs to go out by providing a monthly allowance for the mentor to spend when they go out together. Like any relationship, there are ups and downs. Our volunteer team is always available to provide advice and tools to help navigate through the journey.

A volunteer can also be an academic mentor. In the past, volunteers were tutors, now we rely on our volunteers to be so much more. Academic mentors are building a relationship with the student and again, act as role models in an educational setting. These are people who are moving forward with their education, successful students working toward graduation. That is the best example to set! When the academic mentor helps a student to find a strategy that helps him to learn, rather than just reviewing what the teacher has already taught, then this pair is building a relationship around skill building and not just academic content.

We recently started a Reading/Play program where volunteers are role models to mothers of young children. The volunteer’s role is to read and play with children while showing mothers that this is a beautiful way to bond with their child. At the same time, the volunteers in this program are building relationships with the mothers and are supports for them with any parenting issues they might have.

What impact does volunteering have on the community?

The impact that a volunteer can have on a client is boundless, beginning with the stable and supportive relationship. These relationships build strong and stable individuals which in turn strengthen the foundation of our community, which of course begins with the people within it. And of course, the impact on the volunteer is huge. Our feedback so often is that our volunteer realizes that he or she has learned more and received as much or more from the relationship than the person that they set out to support.

What does the future hold for Ometz Volunteer Services?

We are building peer groups among our volunteers so that they can speak to each other and build their relationships. The future holds more social activities and skills building for our team of fabulous and cherished volunteers.

To find out more about the different volunteering opportunities Ometz offers, click here.