AmeriCorps Seniors Foster Grandparent Program

AmeriCorps Seniors Foster Grandparent Program volunteers, age 55 and older, connect the generations by providing volunteer service to improve our community through meaningful relationships with special or exceptional children and youth.

Foster Grandparents volunteer five to 40 hours per week, tutoring or mentoring children and youth to improve their intellectual thinking, social and emotional, motor or language development skills. Volunteers provide love, encouragement, and companionship in a one-on-one setting in area childcare centers, pre-K’s, elementary schools, and afterschool programs.

Volunteers may also engage in the Pen Pal Program by writing a minimum of 5 children or youth a week if health or circumstances prevent them from serving at a host station.

Hours for service are Monday through Friday. Volunteers receive a modest tax-free stipend to offset the costs of volunteering, reimbursement for transportation, supplemental liability, and accident insurance while on duty, an annual physical, paid time-off, free daily meal at the host station (if available), and training (orientation and mandatory monthly in-service trainings). Foster Grandparents receive hugs and high-fives as well as unconditional love from the children they serve. They get socialization with others, feel needed or useful, and gain a sense of accomplishment and heightened self-esteem. The impact a Foster Grandparent makes in the life of a child and in improving the community and future generations is priceless.

Bilingual volunteers fluent in Spanish and English are needed.