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VOLUNTEER

You can volunteer…

As an individual

As an individual, you can make a huge impact through joining with a team of others concerned about the conditions of low-income workers in Central New Jersey. Don’t wait, call today!

Call to schedule:

Two volunteers load a pick-up truck with boxes of food.
An ESWA member on a telephone.

OR

As a group

From university classes to church groups, labor unions and civic clubs, groups large and small are welcome to participate with ESWA.

Call to schedule:

A photo of almost 90 volunteers, mostly college students.

Get Started

Simple Steps to Get Involved

ESWA is a 100% volunteer-run organizing drive of low-income service, temporary, part-time and seasonal workers and their families

No Minimum

FLEXIBLE HOURS

Volunteers are needed daytimes and evenings, whether for a day, an hour, a week, a summer, or anytime. Call ESWA today at (609) 695-9562.

On-the-Job Training

NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED

We use “on-the-job” training, so anyone can learn while taking action and making a difference. No prior experience or special skills are needed. Volunteers are productive from their first day in!

Learn Organize Skills

DARE TO CARE

Participation is open to all those who dare to care and invest the time. Poverty wages force working families to “choose” between putting food on the table, paying rent and utility bills. Your participation can make a difference for service workers organizing to end poverty conditions.

How It Works

No Machines or Automated Phone Trees, Just Human Contact

ESWA’s phone lines are staffed by volunteers who are ready to answer and schedule new volunteers to participate

You Call Us

Call us anytime seven days per week.

A young woman making a phone call.

We Answer

A volunteer will answer your call and any of your questions.

An ESWA volunteer organizer answering a phone call inside ESWA's office.

You Schedule to Volunteer!

No prior experience is necessary and you are productive your first day in!

A volunteer registering a new member on the sidewalk in the wintertime.

Call (609) 695-9562

An illustration of a man speaking while holding a clipboard which contains a sheet of paper reading Organize, a Workers Association.

Illustration by Zachery Pullen

Organizing As a Profession

Full-Time Organizers Needed!

ESWA provides organizer training through all our activities, thus giving volunteers the opportunity to become professional volunteer organizers – you must dare to care and invest the hard work to learn while doing, in other words, engage in “on-the-job training.” Volunteers are needed 365 days a year, daytimes and evenings, whether for a day, an hour, a week, a summer, a year or for the rest of your life! We own a strategy, a method and have a track record of success. The only missing ingredient is you! Call ESWA today!

Weekly and Monthly Volunteer Activities


  • Three men work together at a food distribution.

    FOOD DISTRIBUTION

    Weekly

    EASTERN SERVICE WORKERS ASSOCIATION (ESWA) members may apply to the association’s budget-saving Benefit Plan II program and participate in weekly free-of-charge supplemental food distributions featuring fresh organic produce and other nutritional foods. Volunteers are needed year-round to pick up, sort, box and distribute food to enrolled members.

  • A volunteer medical professional checks the blood pressure of a member while two other volunteers take notes.

    GENERAL MEDICAL SESSION

    Sunday (monthly)

    Volunteer physicians and registered nurses conduct preventive general medical sessions, checking vital signs and medical histories, providing routine health screenings and exams, including vision care, assisted by a certified ESWA lay medical advocate. More volunteer medical professionals and advocates are needed!


  • A volunteer attorney providing legal advice to an ESWA member, while a volunteer in the foreground takes notes.

    LEGAL ADVICE BENEFIT

    Monthly

    Volunteer attorneys present general legal information in group settings as well as private legal advice consultations, accompanied by an ESWA lay advocate. Topics include wage theft, evictions, discrimination and predatory lending. ESWA needs more volunteer attorneys, legal advocates and interpreters.


  • A student volunteer with a computer sits at a table to do a benefit interview with an ESWA member.

    BENEFIT ADVOCACY

    Wednesday 9:30am - 2:00pm

    Service workers, domestic workers and other low-paid workers can’t win without organization. ESWA teaches the skill of advocacy. You can learn how to fight to keep a member’s lights on, how to help workers win back unpaid wages, how to expunge medical debt, and fight benefit denials for the most vulnerable members.

  • An ESWA member, her grandchildren, and a student volunteer speak to a young woman with two children at a street corner during a membership canvass.

    MEMBERSHIP CANVASS

    Tuesday and Saturday 9:30am - 4:30pm

    ESWA membership canvasses are the lifeblood of our grassroots service worker organizing drive. Alone and isolated we cannot achieve anything; united we can win! Volunteers canvass door-to-door in low-income neighborhoods where members and potential members live to build organization where it’s needed the most.

  • A volunteer points to words in English on a white board to students at a Survival English Class.

    SURVIVAL ENGLISH CLASSES

    Wednesday and Friday 6:00pm-8:00pm
    Sunday 1:00pm-3:00pm

    Volunteer teachers lead Survival English Classes that provide ESWA members education from the perspective of being able to communicate to their employers, landlords and others, as well as help build their organization to address the cause of our collective problems.


  • Two volunteers work on desktop publishing at a computer.

    PUBLICATION SESSION

    Sunday 12:00pm-4:00pm

    Join ESWA's publication staff! You can learn – or help teach – how to produce the next issue of ESWA's newspaper, the New Jersey Service Worker, and our seasonal Sponsors Guide to tell the truth about low-income workers organizing for economic justice. We also need volunteers to design flyers. Call ESWA!

  • An ESWA member selects clothing.

    CLOTHING DISTRIBUTION

    Saturday 11am-2:00pm

    Volunteers assist sorting and organizing clothing, doing benefit intakes and assisting members in filling their clothing requests.

  • An ESWA volunteer organizer holding a clipboard speaks to a woman at a community fair.

    COMMUNITY OUTREACH

    Friday and Sunday Noon - 5pm
    Tuesday (during college semester)

    Volunteers set up information tables in front of grocery stores, local community events and other locations to promote ESWA so that others can join our cause. This is one way ESWA enlists new friends and participants to come in and make a difference. Please call if you can volunteer or if you know of a location where ESWA can set up an information table.

  • A team of volunteers work on preparing mailings.

    MAILOUT SESSION

    Monday and Tuesday 1:00pm-5:00pm

    Volunteers prepare and send letters about our current campaigns to people who have joined ESWA and have expressed an interest in volunteering or supporting ESWA. We need volunteers to help with the daily letter mailouts as well as to assist with the bulk mailing of ESWA’s membership newspaper and Sponsors Guide.


  • Three volunteers at a table making phone calls.

    PHONING SESSION

    Monday and Wednesday 5:30pm-9:00pm

    Volunteers are essential to all of ESWA’s activities year-round. Volunteers conduct group telephone sessions to call members about upcoming benefit activities and re-contact interested individuals met on community outreach about participating with ESWA’s organizing activities scheduled each week.



  • An ESWA volunteer organizer presents a Certificate of Appreciation to two farmers inside of their farm store.

    BUSINESS CANVASS

    Thursday 10:00am-4:00pm

    Volunteers visit local businesses to explain our mutual interests and promote ways that they can participate and support ESWA. Volunteers always work together in teams.


Participate as a volunteer in seasonal events and campaigns

  • Three ESWA members select winter clothing.

    Winter Survival Campaign

    January to March

    Learn More
  • An excited mother leads her young child to hunt for easter eggs.

    Spring Expansion Campaign

    April to May

    Learn More
  • A team of volunteer medical profesisonals presenting information to a group.

    Summer Survival Campaign

    June to September

    Learn More
  • Three children of an ESWA member proudly display their new backbacks.

    Back-to-School Campaign

    July to August

    Learn More
  • An ESWA member chaperoning children on a trick-or-treat activity.

    Holiday Campaign

    October to December

    Learn More