Justserve.Org

[poptart]

Anyone do anything with this?  Stumbled upon it and did a search in my area, Catholic Charities volunteer oportunities came up so it has my seal of approval. 

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, poptart said:

Anyone do anything with this?  Stumbled upon it and did a search in my area, Catholic Charities volunteer oportunities came up so it has my seal of approval. 

Catholic Charities are very effective, and the LDS Church has used them to deliver charity where the LDS Church has no charitable arm available.

[Calm]

Someone on the board has been a JustServe rep, but I will let them speak up if they want. 
 

I get the impression in most areas it is not well utilized, but it is relatively new. Hopefully it will someday be as familiar as Deseret Industries is to members in Utah, so it easily comes to mind when someone is thinking ‘I’d like to do something, but can’t think of what that should be’....

Edited September 2, 2020 by Calm

[poptart]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Catholic Charities are very effective, and the LDS Church has used them to deliver charity where the LDS Church has no charitable arm available.

They're my favorite.

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Someone on the board has been a JustServe rep, but I will let them speak up if they want. 
 

I get the impression in most areas it is not well utilized, but it is relatively new. Hopefully it will someday be as familiar as Deseret Industries is to members in Utah, so it easily comes to mind when someone is thinking ‘I’d like to do something, but can’t think of what that should be’....

In Denver they contributed quite a bit to Catholic Charities and the Denver rescue mission.

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

...........................

I get the impression in most areas it is not well utilized, but it is relatively new. Hopefully it will someday be as familiar as Deseret Industries is to members in Utah, so it easily comes to mind when someone is thinking ‘I’d like to do something, but can’t think of what that should be’....

The equivalent Roman Catholic charity is St Vincent de Paul -- a chain of thrift stores just like Deseret Industries.

[Rain]

On 9/2/2020 at 8:22 AM, poptart said:

Anyone do anything with this?  Stumbled upon it and did a search in my area, Catholic Charities volunteer oportunities came up so it has my seal of approval. 

I was a rep (not anymore).  Justserve is really just a way to connect charities with volunteer work.  Reps find out what the charities in their assigned areas need in the way of volunteers and then either post the project or more preferably teach the charity to post it themselves. Then volunteers can do searches for projects that fit them and either volunteer through the site or be directed to the charity's site.

There are some rules.  Some are no politics,  no fundraisers.  If it is a 501c3 charity the rep needs to get a copy of their certificate.   A few other things.  

How much is on there depends on a few things.  The reps need to get out and find the charities.  Different areas will have different numbers of charities.  (I live in this big blank zone - not a lot of stores, restaurants, charities etc.  Mostly just houses.  A couple of miles over there are a lot.) Because the church owns and runs the website and most if the reps are members (you don't have to be a member) there are some churches that actively won't join it.  (We have a very large church here that would have nothing to do for awhile.)

@Calm feel free to mention me any time on this.

[poptart]

12 hours ago, Rain said:

I was a rep (not anymore).  Justserve is really just a way to connect charities with volunteer work.  Reps find out what the charities in their assigned areas need in the way of volunteers and then either post the project or more preferably teach the charity to post it themselves. Then volunteers can do searches for projects that fit them and either volunteer through the site or be directed to the charity's site.

There are some rules.  Some are no politics,  no fundraisers.  If it is a 501c3 charity the rep needs to get a copy of their certificate.   A few other things.  

How much is on there depends on a few things.  The reps need to get out and find the charities.  Different areas will have different numbers of charities.  (I live in this big blank zone - not a lot of stores, restaurants, charities etc.  Mostly just houses.  A couple of miles over there are a lot.) Because the church owns and runs the website and most if the reps are members (you don't have to be a member) there are some churches that actively won't join it.  (We have a very large church here that would have nothing to do for awhile.)

@Calm feel free to mention me any time on this.

How successful has it been?  I don't think it's just serve, some LDS charity here has done a ton of work with Catholic Charities and others, enough that it made the news.

Ah, suburban sprawl, let me guess rows upon rows of houses with hardly any trees?  I imagine people driving for an hour plus to get to work from a place like that, no thank you. 

[poptart]

Just now, poptart said:

How successful has it been?  I don't think it's just serve, some LDS charity here has done a ton of work with Catholic Charities and others, enough that it made the news.

Ah, suburban sprawl, let me guess rows upon rows of houses with hardly any trees?  I imagine people driving for an hour plus to get to work from a place like that, no thank you. 

Also, thanks for sharing.  Something that I keep in mind when it comes to any charity work the LDS church does, it does tend to be far more than most others in this country do anymore.  It disgusts me how churches turn the poor away at the door now, it happened to me, seen it happen to single parents who were recently homeless.  And people wonder why Americans have started to despise the institution of religion.

 

[Rain]

25 minutes ago, poptart said:

How successful has it been?  I don't think it's just serve, some LDS charity here has done a ton of work with Catholic Charities and others, enough that it made the news.

I've found it really depends on the leaders of the stake.  If the stake president supports it then it does very well in that area.  If, not, it doesn't. 

25 minutes ago, poptart said:

Ah, suburban sprawl, let me guess rows upon rows of houses with hardly any trees?  I imagine people driving for an hour plus to get to work from a place like that, no thank you. 

Actually we have a ton of trees. Mostly citrus, but also palms.  We still have a lot of orange groves here and there and many of the houses have those trees from when a grove was there or citrus planted since.  It smells heavenly when the orange blossoms start blooming all over. 

It only takes my husband about 25 minutes to get to work, but he doesn't work in Phoenix.  And since March he has been working from home.

[poptart]

11 minutes ago, Rain said:

I've found it really depends on the leaders of the stake.  If the stake president supports it then it does very well in that area.  If, not, it doesn't. 

Actually we have a ton of trees. Mostly citrus, but also palms.  We still have a lot of orange groves here and there and many of the houses have those trees from when a grove was there or citrus planted since.  It smells heavenly when the orange blossoms start blooming all over. 

It only takes my husband about 25 minutes to get to work, but he doesn't work in Phoenix.  And since March he has been working from home.

I'm used to suburbs here, the newer ones are like a lot of the ones in CA, wall to wall house, it's sad. 

He's fortunate, lot of the people I knew had to commute for far longer than that pre covid.  I hear now some companies are looking to cut wages since people are working from home now, can't win.

[Rain]

1 hour ago, poptart said:

I'm used to suburbs here, the newer ones are like a lot of the ones in CA, wall to wall house, it's sad. 

He's fortunate, lot of the people I knew had to commute for far longer than that pre covid.  I hear now some companies are looking to cut wages since people are working from home now, can't win.

Distance was definitely something we kept in mind when looking for a house.  We would have been even closer, but we moved mid year with a child in high school and one in junior and the district had a calendar that would have been hard on them that year.

[Chum]

Justserve was introduced to the ward in a 2nd hour talk, about 5 years ago. We're a semi-rural area and at the time the site didn't have much for us. Same result 6 and 12 months later. After that I forgot about it.

We got the Church's email a while back, offering up Justserve as a volunteer suggestion.  Checking again, we have exactly one opportunity in our county - tombstone recording for BillionGraves. I'd enjoy that.

There's a ½ doz options, if we're willing to travel an hour or so.

[Rain]

1 hour ago, Chum said:

Justserve was introduced to the ward in a 2nd hour talk, about 5 years ago. We're a semi-rural area and at the time the site didn't have much for us. Same result 6 and 12 months later. After that I forgot about it.

We got the Church's email a while back, offering up Justserve as a volunteer suggestion.  Checking again, we have exactly one opportunity in our county - tombstone recording for BillionGraves. I'd enjoy that.

There's a ½ doz options, if we're willing to travel an hour or so.

I don't know what area you are in, but the first stage of the pilot program they found out this problem - introduce the site to members and then contact the charities made people forget when there were not projects up.  With the 2nd stage, where my area was a part of it, they changed things around and had much more success - find the charities first, put them on the website and then go introduce it at church.

It also varies quite a bit from place to place.  Here there are a lot of drives for donations of different things.  When we started clearing out my father-in-laws house I figured that we could look at Just Serve and find lots of places for his things to go.  Like with you the only things I was finding were about an hour away.  Here people will complain because there are so many drives compared to service in person.  When I have checked other areas I have found a lot of in person service.  

After thinking about it a lot when I was in the middle of things I think it is based on 2 main things; 1. the charities that are in the area and 2. the ability to think outside of the box.  

What I mean by #2 - If all you have heard of is 1 or 2 types of service it is hard for many to think of other ways.  So when a specialist goes in to talk with a charity they might suggest that Just Serve is a good place to list drives and cleaning.  At least in the beginning we were taught to really ask questions of the charity to find the needs, but that is harder for some people than others.  I started volunteering at the places in my area so I could get to know their needs better so I could suggest ways they could place projects on Just Serve. That also made it easier for the charities to realize that ______ was also something that could be made into a JS project.  

[Chum]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

When a specialist goes in to talk with a charity they might suggest that Just Serve is a good place to list drives and cleaning.  At least in the beginning we were taught to really ask questions of the charity to find the needs, but that is harder for some people than others.  I started volunteering at the places in my area so I could get to know their needs better so I could suggest ways they could place projects on Just Serve. That also made it easier for the charities to realize that ______ was also something that could be made into a JS project.  

I'm trying to wrap my head around the notion of living in a ward that does anything-at-all for the community. It's strictly taboo* here.

* excepting an explicit instruction from the stake, but not an inch beyond that

clarify: JustServe is seen here as a resource for members to go and contribute on their own - and that's it.

Edited October 5, 2020 by Chum

[Calm]

Maybe you could talk to the JustServe rep and see if they need help finding charities to list.

[Rain]

56 minutes ago, Chum said:

I'm trying to wrap my head around the notion of living in a ward that does anything-at-all for the community. It's strictly taboo* here.

* excepting an explicit instruction from the stake, but not an inch beyond that

clarify: JustServe is seen here as a resource for members to go and contribute on their own - and that's it.

Oh believe me, I know the idea.  I was actually the stake JS specialist.  In the beginning there were no ward specialists, only stake (in high member populations) or city/areas. I met with other stake specialists in my area and there was a night and day difference in them.  If the stake president liked and supported JS then generally the bishops did also and JS was well used there.  If the SP didn't like it or didn't support it well then it really went no where.  My stake told me they supported me, but didn't really show that to me or the stake bishops and members so for the most part it was pretty dead here as far as members using it.  

In reality though JS is just supposed to be a resource.  A way to connect volunteers with charities.  It is not supposed to add to the burned of members, not to be a program of any kind.  Just easier to help those who want to volunteer find a place and charities to find volunteers. 

Within the church it should be a good go to resource.  Want a service project for RS night? Check and see what JS has.  A youth wants a project for the goals they are on?  Check JS for ideas.  

When my RSP mentioned at the beginning that she didn't want just another thing for the members to do.  Even though I knew it was just a resource I took her thought to mind and really thought and prayed about it.  A wonderful idea came to mind specific to our stake - this was not another thing for members to put on their plates.  It was a resource to help members deal what was already on their plates.  So I went through the projects in my areas to get good ideas.  

The ONE ward council in the stake I was invited to visit had a man who had just divorced and was having a rough time.  I find that men often don't want you to come over and talk.  So I suggested a couple of projects from JS where he and his home teachers or the EQP could go do together where they could serve, but still have the opportunity to talk if needed.  Then I also found where there were some people who couldn't really leave the house and were lonely, but were functioning well enough to take on a JS project of fostering cats of dogs. 

This was also back before "ministering". I have never been one who thought they needed to come and just have a lesson.  Things I have done before "ministering" was going to lunch with my sisters, go to a movie with them, go shopping along with meals, cleaning etc.  So with JS I thought this could be another opportunity to get to know each other and it would help those who were depressed feel better.  When I did it with my VT sisters it was just that.  

But if a leader on any level doesn't catch that vision it is hard to get the ideas off the ground.  At least for me.  I really needed to have a cheerleader companion in that calling - "I'll come up with ideas if you present them with your talent of getting people to try new things."

[Rain]

34 minutes ago, Calm said:

Maybe you could talk to the JustServe rep and see if they need help finding charities to list.

One other though.  @Chum do you have any anti churches in your area?  We found a big church here wouldn't have anything to do with us and neither would a lot of their members - till one member of that church had a JS project for her charity that she had been praying about done by a newly returned missionary.  She was thrilled by how it went and the timing was pretty miraculous.  She started telling others about it and that helped changed some things with some of the organizations in our area.