Get Involved Colorado is KUNC's monthly series spotlighting a local organization that offers listeners anopportunity make a difference where they live. By volunteering their time, KUNC listeners can make a meaningful contribution and help to build a stronger community. This month, we feature
The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) connects adults age 55 and older with the people and organizations that need them most. RSVP matches volunteers鈥� skills, talents, interests and time availability with appropriate volunteer assignments such as mentoring, coaching, providing companionship to people in need and contributing job skills and expertise to community projects and organizations.
RSVP was established in 1970 to create volunteer opportunities for the senior population to be a resource to address community needs, and is one of the largest volunteer efforts in the nation. Nationally, nearly 430,000 older adults provide community service through more than 740 locally sponsored RSVP projects each year. The amount of service can vary from a few hours a month to almost full-time, with the average hours of service being about four hours a week. Fourteen percent of RSVP volunteers serve at
least eleven hours a week. In Weld County, 749 volunteers do service in 84 agencies throughout the county.
RSVP volunteers may organize neighborhood watch programs, tutor children and teenagers,
renovate homes, teach English to immigrants, teach computer software applications, help
people recover from natural disasters, serve as museum docents鈥攁nd do whatever else
their skills and interests lead them to do to meet the needs of their community.
