• Engage Seattle Home
• Improving Access to Government
• Leveraging Volunteer Service
• Early literacy
• Out-of-school programs
• Mentoring
• Other resources
• Developing Emerging Leaders

Leveraging Volunteer Service

Join a Growing Corps of Volunteers in Service to Seattle's Children and Youth

Be a caring adult in the lives of children and youth.

The opportunity and achievement gaps facing Seattle's children and youth are a critical social justice issue for our city. Helping all children and youth be successful in school and in life while closing those gaps has been one of Mayor McGinn's top priorities both on his campaign and since the beginning of his administration. It's the reason that he launched the Youth and Families Initiative during his first week in office, and it informs our work as a "City of Service" with mayors across the country making a call to action to volunteer and help address the most pressing community needs that can't be solved by government alone. In Seattle, Mayor McGinn has chosen to focus on three key indicators research says support children and youth to be successful:

Early literacy | Out-of-school programs | Mentoring

We do this by recruiting caring adults to become volunteer tutors and mentors while at the same time building the volunteer capacity of the schools and organizations who are supporting these youth. Each of these initiatives in early literacy, out of school programs, and mentorship emerged as top priorities from the Youth and Families Initiative process last year. The initiatives include key partners such as Washington Reading Corps, Seattle Public Schools, Seattle Parks and Recreation, YMCA of Greater Seattle, 4C Coalition, Seattle Cares Mentoring Movement, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound, the United Way of King County, and Seattle Works. And, we recently welcomed two AmeriCorps VISTA National Service volunteers, Jennie Morrison and Jennifer Kim to spearhead these efforts over the next year. Our office also just helped to launch a city-wide attendance campaign called Be Here, Get There that’s focused on reducing absences for at-risk youth.

If you’re interested in helping us support Seattle’s children and youth, please talk to Mariah Pepper with Youth Tutoring Program at volunteerytp@csww.org or Danielle Holing with United Way of King County at readers@uwkc.org or Daisy Catague at Daisy.Catague@seattle.gov or 206-615-0303. To learn more about how you can get involved with Be Here, Get There, contact Ainsley Close at Ainsley.close@seattle.gov or 206-233-2661.

We are proud to thank our partners who are making high impact volunteer strategies a priority for our city and in cities across the country: