Photo by Marsha Sundq u ist

Liz Kanter
makes
getting
involved
easier.

Lending A Hand

hen Liz Kanter moved home
to Detroit in 1989, she asked
around about volunteer op-
portunities. But rather than
receiving a list of worthwhile
causes, she got a lot of
strange looks.
"People were going to Fash
Bash and writing checks to
their favorite charities.
That's great if you can do it.
But it's really not giving back
LESLEY PEARL to the community," Ms. Kan-
STAFF WRITER ter said.
Ms. Kanter nosed around
the neighborhoods and found
many- hurdles and hoops to
jump through to get involved
in volunteering, such as
weekly time commitments
and training programs.
However, she found many
young adults excited about
getting involved and looking
for a means to do it.
Enter Volunteer Impact.
Volunteer Impact, a ser-
vice corps boasting a list of

In three years,
Liz Kanter
has taken
Volunteer Impact
from a good idea
to a thriving
organization.

2,800, assists more than 60
agencies. Projects vary from
working with children at the
Sarah Fisher Center to help-
ing older residents with
home maintenance and re-
pair through Project SAV.E.
(Seek and Visit the Elderly).
Volunteer Impact is 100
percent volunteer run.
Ms. Kanter had helped
form City Year in Boston — a
volunteer corps where young

adults devote one year to giv-
ing back to their city in var-
ious ways. It has served as a
national model.
"We (the founders of City
Year) believed in the idea of
national service. We believed
in it before Mr. 1,000 Points
of Light (President George
Bush)," Ms. Kanter said.
And so Ms. Kanter gath-
ered her knowledge and ex-
perience with an Ameritech
Yellow Pages and found De-
troit agencies looking for vol-
unteers. Not one turned her
down.
In March 1990, Ms. Kan-
ter and 10 others made their
way to Habitat for Humani-
ty in Detroit — painting walls
and knocking down doors.
Habitat for Humanity buys
inexpensive housing from the
government. Families re-
ceive the homes by working
"sweat equity hours," prepar-
ing their own homes and oth-

ers for livability.
. "I started selling friends on
the idea," Ms. Kanter said.
"It just snowballed. We grew
from a mailing list of 200 to
2,800."
Each month a newsletter
is sent out. It lists the vol-
unteer opportunities for the
month — including day, time,
number of individuals need-
ed, a description of the pro-
ject and name and number
of the coordinator. Most pro-
jects occur during the week-
end, with a few on
weeknights.
Interested volunteers con-
tact the project coordinator
for details. Agencies work
with the Volunteer Impact
board members to decide
where services are most
needed.
"Volunteer Impact elimi-
nates the barriers to volun-
teering. There is no training,
no long-term commitment.