Founded in 1998, The Trevor Project is a national organization that provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention to LGBTQ+ youth. With four main platforms, The Trevor Project has different avenues of contact all free and available 24/7. TrevorLifeline (866.488.7386) is the only national crisis/suicide hotline available 24/7 for LGBTQ+ youth. TrevorChat is a secure, confidential chat service available through Trevor’s website that connects at risk youth with trained counselors. TrevorText provides young people with a trained counselor by texting START to 678-678. TrevorSpace is a social networking community for LGBTQ youth, friends, and allies to provide peer support. In addition to these platforms, The Trevor Project website provides training, resources, and education to help the LGBTQ community, parents, and friends with any obstacles they may face. Every year, Trevor receives over 100,000 text, chats, or calls and educates over 22,000 with their resources.As a Digital Crisis Counselor, I’m trained to answer chats or texts from LGBTQ young people who reach out when they are struggling with issues such as coming out, LGBTQ identity, depression, and suicide. The training for this included 40-hour virtual courses over the span of 10-weeks, including e-learning modules, role plays and supervised shifts. I started volunteering with this organization because one supportive person can up the chances of saving a life by 30 percent. As a crisis counselor for The Trevor Project, I have the opportunity to listen to and validate the struggles of youth that may not otherwise have an outlet. I believe everyone has a right to live without fear of self-expression and to feel seen and valued; volunteering for The Trevor Project allows me to instill empathy and teach coping strategies for self-reliance. As Dr. Wayne Dyer said, “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” By volunteering for the Trevor Project, I hope that the youth I talk to accept themselves as who they are and, through this, the world also accepts them.
Donations can be made here
Parks Department
Gardener
Since humans began cutting down forests, 46% of trees have been felled. Not only does this displace numerous animal species, but also our pollinators as well. Birds, bees, bats, and several other insects require pollinating plants for homes and food and it’s estimated that this pollination produces $40 billion worth of food in the US alone. Without these pollinators, we’d be out of everything from apples to chocolate to potatoes; furthermore, they pollinate most of the food our livestock eat as well. Without adequate pollination, humans and animals alike would be without most of our food sources. Worldwide, over half the diet of fats and oils comes from crops pollinated by animals and they facilitate the reproduction in 90% of the world’s flowering plants.
Throughout college I volunteered with the Chattanooga Parks Department to plant Pollinator Patches. This is done by first clearing any trash or weeds from an area safely away from roads or other hazards then by planting native pollinating plants. We typically used gayfeather, aster, goldenrod, coneflower, or sneezeweed. Any non-invasive, pollinating plants will work, especially if they require full to partial sun. Occasionally, we would receive flowering trees or bushes as donations that we would be able to plant as well; these were beneficial as they provide immediate homes to insects or small animals without needing to wait through the growth period. Typically we would spend about 4-5 hours on Saturdays clearing the area and installing these patches. Now, anytime I go back to Chattanooga, I’m able to drive past them and see how far they’ve come and what wildlife animals have a new home. Installing these patches has helped me feel like every little bit matters – especially as I go by them and am greeted by beautiful flowers and pollinators.
Women’s Centers and Shelter
Seamstress
Research has shown that pregnancy increases a woman’s risk of homelessness and vice versa – that homeless women are more likely to become pregnant than housed women. In fact, homeless families make up approximately 40% of the homeless population on any given night. The Lantern at Morning Pointe is an assisted living facility caring for those with Alzheimers and dementia whose residents made a goal to create no sew baby blankets each month for donation to local homeless shelters. This enables the residents to work with their fine motor skills and spend time with one another as they work towards a goal.Morning Pointe encourages the community around them participate and will donate any baby blankets dropped off to the facility. As someone who’s always needed to keep busy (even while watching a movie) I appreciate small tasks to do that help give back as well. I enjoyed picking out matching fabrics and making these baby blankets, either while watching a movie at home or while spending time with the residents of Morning Pointe who were doing the same.
Animal Shelters
Dog Trainer & Adoption Specialist
Approximately 6.5 million companion animals enter U.S. animal shelters nationwide every year and approximately 1.5 million shelter animals are euthanized. Unfortunately, about 30 percent of the animals in shelters are left there by their owners, typically due to aggressive behavior or animals growing larger than anticipated. This leads to approximately half of all rehomed pets being abandoned at shelters. I believe this is completely preventable through proper training and owner education.
I began volunteering at animal shelters in 2012 at TCGC in Kingsport, TN, working adoption events on the weekends. While there, I helped almost 100 dogs and cats get adopted (one to my own family). After moving to Chattanooga, TN for college I volunteered for the SPCA of Chattanooga, where I kept the animal areas sanitary, completed evening feedings, and worked with reactive dogs in preparation for adoption events.
Volunteering with these shelters made feel like part of a solution – instead of just letting reactive or depressed dogs waste away in a shelter, we worked with them constantly to rehabilitate them into a more docile and obedient temperament through reward training. Before setting up the final adoption papers, I compiled lists of average sizing, temperament, potential health issues, and fixes for common behavioral issues. I would then go over all of this with potential owners to ensure they had a realistic expectations in order to decrease the risk of any pets being returned. Many of these stray dogs had few positive interactions with people, so seeing them go from timid or aggressive to cuddled up on a couch wearing a sweater with their new family was incredibly rewarding and worth every second.