Give Saavi by Volunteering
What it means to Volunteer
Our volunteers provide us with the organizational capacity to continue working towards our vision: A world where blind individuals are equal contributors locally, nationally and throughout the world. We believe that volunteers represent an invaluable resource for effectively implementing and growing our services.
You may notice that few volunteer opportunities involve direct engagement with students. We know that allyship has many forms and every hour of your time is valuable. For this reason. we aim to craft meaningful projects and assignments with visible impacts on our students, despite not directly engaging them.
We believe that activities like reading to our students, while well intentioned, ultimately take away from our goal of full independence. Our students train under shade, because we know that vision is only one method for accomplishing a task. We know that our volunteers have a vast variety skills and experiences to offer our students, many of which are not dependent on providing sight. This methodology allows our students to continue expecting, achieving, and being more.
Volunteer Today
Saavi is looking for volunteers with a wide range of skills to help us continue working towards our mission. If any of the below positions interest you, please fill out our Volunteer Application.
If you have other skills you feel you can donate or any other questions about our volunteer program, please contact,
Ryan Thomas
rthomas@saavi.us
Here’s some ways you can help Saavi continue to provide quality services:
Tucson
Can you help us create a welcoming, useful, and accessible outdoor space for our students to train in? Our ideal volunteer can give 10 hours a week to:
- Provide insight on plant selections and other outdoor design elements
- Perform regular ground maintenance duties such as trimming, planting, watering, and weeding
- Use and operate a variety of tools, mechanical equipment, and machinery
- Ensure compliance with accessibility and safety standards in all areas
Phoenix
Can you support our braille transcriptionist in creating materials for our students? Our ideal volunteer can give 10 hours a month to:
- Assist students with talking book library sign ups
- Assist in mailing talking books
- Organize learning materials in braille classroom
- Assist with adapting popular board and card games
- Assist with minor binding projects
Phoenix
Can you help with various transcription duties? Our ideal volunteer can give 5 hours a week to:
- Attend student staffing meetings and create accurate transcriptions
- Create subtitles on previously uploaded Saavi YouTube videos
- Verify accuracy of previously transcribed work
Phoenix, Tucson
Can you share your skills with our students? We welcome volunteers to teach a wide range of classes such as yoga, art, baking, or some other class/workshop. Our ideal volunteer can give 3-5 hours a week to:
- Utilize inclusive teaching techniques to facilitate one hour classes/workshops
- Coordinate with student services to monitor student progress
- Modify instruction to promote nonvisual learning
- Modify activities and/or instruction to accommodate students with multiple disabilities
Tucson
Can you help us digitize a large number of paper files? Our ideal volunteer can give to 5-10 hours a week to:
- Upload paper files to Saavi’s shared drive using a scanner
- Ensure all uploaded documents are in an accessible format
- Enter data from files into Excel
Tucson, Phoenix
Can you capture the amazing work our students and staff do every day? Our ideal volunteers can work in four hour shifts to:
- Take high quality photos and videos of Saavi activities
- Learn accessible and inclusive photography techniques
- Upload photos to Saavi’s Flickr account with image descriptions
Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma
Can you help students locate, apply for, and receive resources available in our community? Our ideal volunteer can give 4-10 hours a week to:
- Identify resources in the community that may help student’s fulfill unmet needs such as affordable housing, food assistance, medical insurance
- Assist clients in applying for/connecting with local programs and federal programs such as SNAP, Medicare, and Medicaid
- Research existing programs and create a resource bank for future use
Phoenix
Can you help gather clothing donations for our student wardrobe? Our ideal volunteer can give 5 hours a week to:
- Work with our volunteer coordinator to organize a clothing drive at your school or workplace
- Use Saavi created promotional materials to raise awareness of the drive
- Drive donations back to Saavi’s Phoenix center
Phoenix
Can you help us build a spice rack in our kitchen? Our ideal volunteer can give 8 hours a week to:
- Design plans for a wall hanging spice rack to fit Saavi’s kitchen
- Coordinate with purchasing staff to buy building materials
- Install your design in the kitchen for students to use for years to come
Phoenix
Can you help us organize our student kitchen? Our ideal volunteer can give 5 hours a week to:
- Check the fridges and cupboards for expired foods
- Assist in creating braille labels stating expiration dates
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