Women's Community Leadership

For as little as one hour a week, volunteers can help kids with learning activities and serve as a valuable resource over the summer. Women's Community Initiative is working to engage and encourage our kids by offering support during enrichment and reading hours at Fun in the Sun. Volunteers support counselor-led activities, work with children one-on-one, help to chaperone field trips, and more!  We are looking for volunteers who are able to make a regular commitment of a couple hours or more each week for most weeks during the summer; however, individuals who are available to come out to Fun in the Sun at least three times during the entire summer can also play an important role. If you’d like more information or would like to get involved, please email us, or call United Way at 805-965-8591.

As part of their College & Career Bound curriculum, the kids at Fun in the Sun will be asked to think about what they want to be when they grow up. Volunteers can help with this exploration by talking about themselves and their profession. Volunteers open the children's eyes to career opportunities and help promote life-long learning.

Career Day Mentors speak to groups of children in sessions that can be as brief as 20 minutes and as long as 45 minutes. We can accommodate your schedule in the mornings or afternoons any time of the week, with Fridays serving as the most flexible day to schedule.

For more information email us, or call United Way at 805-965-8591.

Volunteer Opportunities in Fund Raising

United Way of Santa Barbara County has dozens of different volunteer fund raising positions. They range from short and longer term CEO cultivation activities to sales team efforts with employers' internal volunteers to college student involvement with our Loaned Scholar Program. Most of our fund raising volunteers range from 16 to 85 years old, coming from all sorts of different backgrounds, and most have from one week to over forty years of residency in Santa Barbara County.

If you are new to the area, between positions, making a career change, want to expand your current personal or business networking contacts, or just want to volunteer and work with hundreds of community caring people, then volunteering in the fund raising area is for you! Simply call our Director for the Community Campaign at 805-965-8591 or send a resume or letter of interest to United Way of Santa Barbara County, 320 East Gutierrez St. Santa Barbara, CA 93101 or email your resume to us.

• If you are currently employed or between positions, download an application form and information. 

• If you are a college student, download an application form and more information.

Home Play Learning Kits

Do you realize that each year hundreds of Santa Barbara children enter kindergarten at a great disadvantage because their parents didn't know how to support their learning (read stories, play games, take advantage of teachable moments, do learning activities), or they lacked very simple materials such as books, games, and scissors at home? Recently, a local pre-kindergarten summer school teacher said,
"Many of the children in our class did not know the names of colors, how to use scissors, or even the first letter of their name." In a parent group, one father said, "We parents need suggestions about how to help our children learn. We can't afford expensive toys". Luckily, expensive toys AREN'T the answer. Well planned materials are.

In response to parents' need for information and materials, United Way of Santa Barbara County is organizing support for expanded distribution of a successful, locally developed Home Play Learning Kit program for parents of 2 to 5 year olds. Each one of 25 kits contains a bilingual letter with tips on using it to support children's learning plus a story book and materials. Parents love these kits which set them up as their children's true "first teachers". The kit contents are inexpensive, yet wonderful for children who have so little resources at home. ..things like chalk, chalkboards and erasers, giant measuring tapes, scissors, glue sticks and crayons, magnet, sorting and guessing games; paper, playdough and much more. Buying in bulk and scavenging saves big bucks!

United Way of Santa Barbara County and Santa Barbara children hope you will join the Home Play Learning Kit Bandwagon: collect items for kits; join a team that gets together to assemble kits; volunteer to host a table at a workshop where parents make their own kits to keep; "adopt-a-kit" and provide for the purchase of its book and materials. We guarantee you will fall in love with at least 5 of the 25 kits in this program and want to be sure kids have them at their house! For more information, please email us or call 805-965-8591. Or, to volunteer to help assemble kits, sign up online now.

Campaign Cabinet

Build and strengthen United Way of Santa Barbara County's relationships with key business leaders and workplaces in Santa Barbara by providing peer to peer requests and recognition for involvement in the Annual Campaign. Time commitment is 30-35 hours total during the months of April through September. Please call Steve Ortiz at 805-965-8591 for more information or contact us by email to find out how you can participate during the upcoming Annual Campaign.

Individualized Placement

If you desire, United Way of Santa Barbara County will be happy to conduct a personal interview with you to create a custom volunteer position in an atmosphere as close as possible to your wishes or constraints. Our goal is to increase successful volunteerism in Santa Barbara County. Through our Personalized Placement Program we have conducted and placed over a thousand satisfied volunteers. Call 805-965-8591 and speak to Steve Ortiz or email us.

Volunteering Needs