This committee's primary focus is to provide monthly opportunities for JLS volunteers to make an impact in the community. The programs occur on a monthly basis and allow for JLS members to directly interact with the public. The committee's current projects include Page Turners, which is a reading program at the Sacramento Children'ts Receiving Home; preparing and serving dinners for the women and children staying at St. John's Shelter; preparing sack lunches for children attending the Mustard Seed School; conducting Life Skills workshops for emancipated foster youth with the LaVerne Adolfo Traditional Housing Program; a diaper drive for Birth & Beyond; and a clothing drive for the Sacramento Food Bank.
Page Turners
The Children's Receiving Home is the safety net for the area's abused and neglected children between the ages of 1 and 17. As the only emergency shelter of its kind in Sacramento County, they serve as the "front door" of the child protective system. With a daily capacity of 88 children, they help up to 1,800 chldren each year. Junior League partners with the Children's Receiving Home to promote literacy among their residents with the Page Turners program. On a weekly basis, two League volunteers go to the home and read to the children for an hour and a half.
Volunteers are touched by the impact such a small gesture can have on young children and the residents are grateful for the time volunteers are willing to spend to them.
St. John's Shelter for Women and Children
St. John's mission is to support homeless women and children to advance from a point of crisis to a position of self-sufficiency. The shelter - the only one of its kind in Sacramento, provides comprehensive 24-hours-a-day service to more than 100 women and children. Junior League prepares and serves dinner at St. John's on the first Tuesday and the third Thursday of each month, September through May.
Mustard Seed
Mustard Seed is a free, private school for homeless children ages 3-15 years old. It provides a safe, nurturing and structured environment, a positive learning experinece, happy memories, survival resources of food, clothing and shelter referrals, medical and dental screenings, immunization updates, counseling for children and their parents, and assistance entering or reentering public schools.
Junior League volunteers make homemade lunches for Mustard Seed School on the third Friday and fourth Monday of every month, September through May. Volunteers are expected to make between 20 - 30 nutritious bag lunches. Often times, this is the only meal these children get that day and is an easy way for League volunteers to make a big impact.
Life Skills
Life Skills works with the LaVerne Adolfo Housing Program, the transitional housing component of the Sacramento Emancipation Collaboration, located at the Sacramento County's Mather Community Campus. The program develops training curriculum for foster youth who have aged out of the foster care system. The curriculum focuses on employment, social, educational and other issues in an effort to teach new skills and build a healthy lifestyle.
League members can volunteer to participate in Life Skills sessions simply by lending their expertise, preparing snacks for the session, or by sharing new or gently used professional clothing. Members can also donate to the JLS annual fund to support the program. Volunteers can expect one-on-one interaction with the League's target audience - at-risk youth. Each year there are eight weeknight evening sessions from January through April held at their facility in Rancho Cordova.
Diaper Drive
Birth & Beyond is an award-winning home visitation prgoram that provides family support services to pregnant women and families with new babies. The Junior League-supported Diaper Drive strives to provide participating families with one of the items they need most - diapers. Junior League members donate diapers and deliver them to the one of seven Birth and Beyond centers each month. Members also work to secure support from businesses in the community to increase the level of support Junior League is able to provide.
League members interested in volunteering with this program do so in a variety of ways. They can make diaper donations themselves by dropping off diapers at general meetings or at the League office. They can also volunteer to deliver diaper donations to Birth and Beyond sites or they can solicit participation in the diaper drive from local businesses.
