Volunteer
Looking to volunteer at street youth ministry?
There are lots of opportunities to volunteer at Street Youth Ministry. We need help in many different ways.
At SYMin, our volunteers are an essential part of our community. Our young adult, street-dependent clients look forward to seeing you. Our staff is tremendously helped by you. We wouldn't be SYMin without you!
Note that we have moved to a new location.
Driving and parking so much simpler now.
Only 20 minutes north of our previous location via bus 803.
Want to help us to connect to new homeless youth on the streets? We need your help on our outreaches.
Want to help us in our Drop-in Center? We need your help organizing the Sunshine Store and engaging clients. New location!
Back to School
Benefits Everyone!
Dear volunteer,
Volunteers are such a diverse and interesting group! Some do one-time things we need desperately. Some engage so deeply that they become a regular part of some portion of our ministry together! And still others spend time and resources finding much-needed items and helping us recycle, repurpose, and reuse as much as possible. Some got to know us through groups and want to come back. Some of you take breaks because of life circumstances but want to stay in the know so you can help when possible.
Thank you for being a volunteer or re-use donor!
So, what's going on this fall? Here are some of the things:
We are celebrating back-to-school and client education this month. Read a couple ways that it has high impact below.
One-time work as well as virtual and in-kind folks may like:
- Drive on a Saturday morning to pick up Whole Foods items. A medium to large vehicle works fine. You'll help fill our fridge those above! Clients love it, and you have tremendous impact is such a short time!
- Sign up for a "team" so we can send you micro-news as it happens. This is for those of you who prefer virtual and one-time projects. The messages will be tailored to your passions and potential: pets, teaching, mentoring, creating, problem-solving, errands, groups and more. Teams have tons of potential to allow people to do quick one-off, high-impact things for our clients! Join as many as you like!
- We also have a new time slot for live teaching and networking every Wednesday afternoon! We're setting aside time for clients and our team to get to know what you do or learn more about a topic you love to share. Our team is excited!
We continue to make room for volunteers who want to serve regularly for a few months. Below, we've shared stories of people who've integrated into our team for a season to work with clients and found it really rewarding! Could this be a season for you to do something like this?
- We have daytime sunshine store helpers help clients find needed items and engage with them as they "shop."
- Friday Funday helpers hang out with us on Friday afternoons on our themed or movie days. Join the action team!
- We have outreach options just about every day of the week:
- If you can drive, we need you during mid-day on Tuesdays or Thursdays in Austin
- If you're in West Campus, you can join us Monday evening or Thursday evening.
- If you're in San Marcos or can drive there, we need you on Friday evening.
If shopping, recycling, and reusing is your thing, you can always get some friends together and work on a wide variety of things:
- Anything in our connect sites on needs. We update urgent items in real time
- .Assembling food in various forms for delivery is a big job and we always need additional deliveries.
At SYMin, one of our values is "keeping it fresh." We've launched our fall schedule the week of Labor Day, and this schedule will run for the rest of the year. Those interested in Friday Funday themes, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, please sign up for the creativity or group teams. Here are the fall themes:
- National Taco Day - October 4th
- Pumpkin Spice Day - October 18th
- SYMin's Spooky Halloween Party - October 31st
- SYMin's Thanksgiving Luncheon - November 26th and 27th
- Thanksgiving Meal Box Distribution - November 29th or 30th
- Christmas Caroling Talent Nights
- Christmas Luncheon - December 20th
- Christmas Gifts and Wrapping
Be sure to join our teams if any of these themes or one-time things are of interest!
Jessica Pham
Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator
• Back-to-School Impact on Clients
• Opportunities Your Way
- One-time Volunteering
- Mentor/Teaching/Networking Wed afternoon
- Regular Volunteering
- Sunshine Store Helping Clients Shop
- Mid-day Tue/Thur Outreach Driver
- West Campus Thursday Evening
- In-kind Volunteering
- Supporting from a Distance
Interested in volunteering but not sure?
Want to help but not on a schedule? Join our teams at left.
"Can You See Me" Reporting Tool
The Can You See Me reporting tool allows our team of 1000+ trained volunteers from the last decade to help us know where homeless youth are located all over the country. It's the beginning of a collaborator network that will cover the country! It's a bold vision, but we can do this together!