Have you seen the social media posts from Eight Waves and thought to yourself, Wow I would like to help in some way! I know I have. They inspired me to dig a little deeper and learn more about this great non-profit organization! Here, we meet Kelly, Director of Operations and Programs for Eight Waves. Plus, she tells us some great ways we can volunteer our time and/or goods to help this great cause!
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What is Eight Waves? How did it get started?
Eight Waves is a 501c3 non-profit organization that supports children and families. Our mission is to build relationships by establishing trust, to support children and families through our eight initiatives, to empower them to create a lasting change in their own lives and communities. Eight Waves has eight initiatives that we focus on - reading intervention, mentorship, life experiences, birthday parties, mom's mentoring, family stability, books for babies, and hygiene help.
Eight Waves started in 2019 when a team of community members wanted to bring hope and shed light on the under-resourced children in the West Orange community. Eight Waves started for the unseen little girl or boy in the classroom who wears unwashed clothes and lacks the food and hygiene supplies he or she needs to focus on his or her studies. With the help of our Eight Waves program, these children no longer have to worry. Instead, they can focus on learning and having fun. Our goal at Eight Waves is to support and advocate for vulnerable, at-risk children, schools in families in under-resourced communities.
What is your role?
I am the Director of Operations & Programs for Eight Waves. I work alongside our Founder/Executive Director to ensure that all things Eight Waves run smoothly. I am in charge of all of the programming, administrative tasks, donor management, social media, newsletters, and also assist with fundraising events, grants applications, and anything else needed to ensure our organization is running smoothly. We are a small non-profit, so our team is still growing, and therefore we all wear many hats.
What kind of training/preparation did you do for your role?
I am a certified teacher with ten years of teaching experience, as well as a mother of three young children. My personal and professional experiences have helped to shape me into the person I am today, and have all prepared me for what I do at Eight Waves. I also served as a Community Service Student Director in college, and have volunteer experience with other non-profit organizations. Finally, I have participated in Edyth Bush Institute's Empowering Good Program as well as UCF's Center for Public and Nonprofit Management Capacity Building Training Program, both of which are opportunities specific to nonprofit organization training.
What are some volunteer opportunities you offer for families to help out with?
Some family friendly opportunities we have are our quarterly Birthday Parties, our Life Experiences and our after school programs.
In addition to these family opportunities we also have in-school Mentorship, but that is only available for adults. Thursdays we meet at Dillard from 10:30-12:30 and Tuesday and Friday we meet at West Orange High School from 11-12:30. We are also starting up a partnership with Lakeview for fun Fridays and will be volunteering there on the fourth Friday of each month from 11:15-1:30.
If you'd like to get involved in the mentoring program, you can email Chloe@eightwaves.org for Dillard Elementary Program and hailey@eightwaves.org for West Orange High Program.
Can you go into more details about the Monday and Wednesday volunteer opportunities - what would young children to teens be doing to help?
Our after school program meets Mondays 3-5PM and Wednesdays 2-5PM at the West Orange Dream Center, and is a great opportunity for volunteers of all ages to join us! Our program serves students PreK through 5 in the after school space, so children volunteering should be at least PreK, and can be as old as high school without needing a background check. Any adults 18+ need to complete our volunteer form and background check here: https://form.jotform.com/210535338893158
On Mondays we meet from 3-5PM and we are in need of volunteers to pair up with students to help with homework, serve a snack, complete arts and craft projects, play sports outside, and read together.
On Wednesdays we meet from 2-5PM and the focus is on mentoring, homework help, reading, and we usually welcome a guest speaker or group for an activity. We have churches that come and do a Bible lesson and craft, Winter Garden Theater, Peace the Comfort Dog, Stormy The Miniature Pony, etc.
Our teen volunteers work alongside the adult volunteers and are able to do all of the activities like reading, homework help, serving snacks, helping set up and clean up after, etc.
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How can volunteers help at the Life Experiences trips? Where can they sign up and find out that info? Any other details?
Life Experiences, which are like field trips and that is another opportunity for families to volunteer together! Typically we go once a month to places such as Sky Zone, Lollipops, splash pad, playground, ice cream, etc. Anyone interested in helping with Life Experiences can send me an email directly and we can get them connected. We require all volunteers 18+ to complete a background check before volunteering with us.
Do you have more details on the Community Birthday Party?
For the birthday party we have a community birthday party once a quarter, in January, April, July and October. We celebrate the children in our program, their siblings, and anyone in the community. We have families register for our program to be celebrated at the birthday party. Anyone in the community is welcome to come and join in the celebration! We are always looking for volunteers for these events and we post about them online and in our newsletter. The location and time varies, but it is usually 12-2PM. Currently the Elks are sponsoring our birthday parties. We have had a video game truck, bounce houses, and Florida Foam Factory as examples for the parties.
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You mentioned books. Can families donate books and/or supplies somewhere?
We have a Books for Babies initiative for newborn babies where we can collect new board books. We also do take donations of gently used books for our after school program, but we have recently received a lot of donations, so we ask individuals to email first before coming by to drop off donations. We do take arts and craft supplies, and our biggest need for donations are snacks and drinks. For snacks, individually wrapped chips are the best! For drinks, small water bottles and juice boxes. We have partnered with many organizations and local schools and school groups, such as NHS and NJHS to collect items for our programming, especially hygiene help. We are always open to groups having drives to collect items!
How can young children get involved in helping their peers?
Young children can volunteer with an adult if they are in elementary school or middle school. If they are in high school they can volunteer without an adult. For the younger volunteers they can offer peer tutoring and Mentorship.
We are trying to teach mentees to be compassionate, caring, and generous with their time and talent. To lend a helping hand to someone when you have a skill or ability is a great lesson to learn. Even if not volunteering with Eight Waves, families and children can do many of the Mentorship activities we do at the program and learn about the importance of relationship building, character building, and take those skills with them to school and be leaders within their school communities.
What kinds of impacts have you seen happening in our community in part to Eight Waves’ efforts?
Over the last few years since our program started, we have seen an increase in the number of students we are serving and a huge amount of growth within the community. Through our program and services, we have helped to support many children and families who are struggling. Our students have an increased amount of confidence within themselves and in their abilities to read and perform well in school. We have also seen an increased amount of awareness of the incredible need within our community.
Thank you, Kelly! I definitely want to get involved soon, and hope to bring my daughter and two nieces along. We are looking for ways to help our community as a family and these are wonderful ideas. Thank you even more so for impacting the youth in such amazing ways.
Want to contact Kelly? Send her an email! kelly@eightwaves.org
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