The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP)

The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) helps individuals age 55 and older put their skills and life experience to work for their communities. RSVP volunteers serve from a few hours to twenty hours a week. They do just about everything – from tutoring tots and renovating homes, to planting gardens and programming computers. However they choose to serve, RSVP volunteers meet community needs and make a lasting difference.

RSVP is a unique program in that its flexibility allows persons of various skill levels and expertise to tackle problems that directly affect their communities in a myriad ways. RSVP, in its 30th year as a successful community program, has always focused on motivating older Americans to find ways to help their community.

• Volunteers can choose opportunities that best fit their active lifestyles. They can use the skills they’ve honed through their life and job experience, or try their hand at something completely new and different. 
• RSVP volunteers bring a diversity of interest and a uniformity of dedication to community service projects that can change lives. 
• RSVP shows that regardless of age there is much one can contribute to their community. 
• RSVP volunteers provide America with an example of the best in our country’s “spirit of volunteering”. 
• RSVP reflects the changing faces of senior volunteerism in America. 

Why Do RSVP Volunteers Get Involved?

• Some people feel a lack of productivity when they no longer have a regular work site or schedule. RSVP helps seniors stay active and involved. 
• Gives opportunities for all seniors to answer the call to service. 
• Many RSVP volunteers have lived in their communities for a long time. Because the community has given them so much, they see serving as a way to give something back.
• Studies show that seniors who volunteer live longer, healthier and more fulfilling lives. 
• Volunteers enjoy the satisfaction of making a difference, building stronger and safer neighborhoods and getting back even more than they give.
  

What Do RSVP Volunteers Do?

• Sit on community boards
• Driver for medical appointments
• Assist with community policing
• Plan community events 
• Be a Volunteer Leader
• Start a new volunteer site 
• Become a senior advocate
• Support homebound seniors 
• Make hospital visits
• Welcome someone home from the hospital 
• Organize neighborhood watch groups
• Teach the Internet  Mentor an at-risk teen
• Help people recover from disasters 
• Read for the blind
• Tutor a child 
• Help at a food bank

RSVP volunteers choose how and where they want to serve. Many continue the type of work they enjoyed earlier in life, while other try something completely different. You may commit to serving in one or more ongoing efforts. The number of hours you serve is flexible. You will receive a pre-service orientation, followed by appropriate on-the-job training from the agency or organization where you are placed. While on duty, you will be covered by our supplemental insurance policy.

The RSVP future.....