A Do-Gooder’s Guide to Dallas-Fort Worth

Originally posted by D Magazine

Dallas is a giving town with plenty of opportunities to roll up your sleeves. However, the options are so vast that it can become difficult to know where to volunteer your time. We’ve broken down some of your options into five categories: Feeding people, helping local students, helping the unhoused and formerly unhoused, making the city beautiful and livable, and helping specific communities.  While this list is by no means exhaustive, it should help almost anyone in Dallas looking for a way to give back.

Feed People

Crossroads Community Services provides groceries based on the nutritional needs of each person in the household, and always needs volunteers to help clients, stock shelves, and other tasks. Get details here.

Minnies Food Pantry also has a whole list of tasks a volunteer could do, which means there are plenty of opportunities to help. Get details here.

Inspired Vision Compassion Center offers a variety of services to the communities it serves, including a food pantry. You can volunteer here.

Sharing Life is one of only two redistribution centers for the North Texas Food Bank and served almost 1 million people last year.  While food assistance is their primary mission, they also offer wrap-around services that provide opportunities for their clients to attain stability. Get details here.

The North Texas Food Bank is the region’s largest food bank and serves 118 million meals a year. You can pack boxes, sort produce, take in donations, and more. Get details here.

Aunt Bette’s Community Pantry serves the community at St. Philip’s School and Community Center in South Dallas, but anyone can receive a limited supply of emergency food. Volunteers are needed to assist clients and stock the pantry. Get details here.

Bonton Farms is more than just a garden—it now offers nutritional counseling, housing, jobs, healthcare, and more. But volunteering opportunities still abound, including farm restoration, goat milking, plant harvesting, and working with chickens. It’s a family-friendly opportunity, too. Learn more here.

Brother Bill’s Helping Hand has provided food, healthcare, and educational opportunities in Dallas for more than 75 years. There are volunteer options throughout the city. You can find details here.

Help Local Students

There are many ways to volunteer with local schools. Dallas ISD has several standing programs, but your neighborhood school always needs volunteers doing everything from making copies for teachers and chaperoning an 8th-grade dance to serving on Site-Based Decision Making Committees that help make recommendations for school programs. You can also join the school’s PTA. Get started here.

Making sure that a child can read at grade level by third grade is a game-changer for his or her educational trajectory.  Two organizations—Reading Partners and Readers 2 Leaders—train volunteer tutors to work in schools, helping students who need extra support to meet that goal.

United to Learn works to address opportunity gaps at 126 Dallas ISD elementary schools by helping to strengthen school culture and well-being, creating aspirational learning environments, helping with literacy initiatives, and encouraging the community to be better informed about the headwinds public schools face. You can find volunteer opportunities here.

Help the Unhoused and Formerly Unhoused

There are several organizations in Dallas that help the unhoused, including Austin Street Center, Our Calling, The Stewpot, The Bridge, and Dallas Life, and all offer opportunities to help on-site with a variety of needs, including serving meals, welcoming clients, sorting mail, and more. (You could even find the love of your life.) Family Gateway works with unhoused families to get them shelter and help them transition to stable housing. It is a family-friendly option. Find out details here.

Back on My Feet’s Dallas chapter uses running as a way to work unhoused and unemployed participants into a routine. As they run (or even walk) with volunteers, informal mentorships form. The organization’s main goal is to help participants get jobs and live independently. Volunteer runners usually sign up for one morning a week, but some also join relay groups in local races, including the BMW Dallas Marathon. Read more about the program here and here.

Once someone who was formerly unhoused moves into a home, there is the expense of furnishing it. Dwell With Dignity helps with that by doing everything from refurbishing donated furniture to providing interior decorating services with that furniture in clients’ new abodes. Volunteer opportunities can be found here.

Make the City Beautiful and Livable

With so much asphalt and concrete, Dallas summers can become unbearably hot thanks to the heat island effect. Organizations like Texas Trees combat that by planting trees and helping communities green up. You can find out about their volunteer options here.

The Trust for Public Land’s Texas branch is responsible for developing some of your favorite new parks, and has plans for many more. You can find volunteer opportunities by keeping tabs on their event page, following them on social media, and also by signing up for the TPL newsletter.

The Jubilee Park & Community Center has been busy for 28 years, offering wrap-around education, housing, workforce, health, and safety services, as well as assistance with basic needs. Volunteers are needed to help with tutoring, assisting in the health clinic, helping at events, and more. Details are here.

Dallas Park and Recreation Department has tons of volunteer opportunities, ranging from park maintenance to coaching youth sports. Find out more here. Your neighborhood Dallas public library branch also needs volunteers—you can learn more here.

The historic Freedman’s town of Joppa, now a community in Dallas, was declared a food desert not long ago. Joppy Momma’s Farm, a community farm and garden, aims to change that by offering healthy, fresh, affordable food. You can find out about volunteer opportunities here.

The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas provides a variety of resources for the communities it serves, and volunteers power that. The nonprofit has volunteer opportunities with coaching youth sports, camp leaders, senior care, food distribution, mentorship, and more. Learn more here.

For Oak Cliff got its early start when co-founder and CEO Taylor Toynes, then a teacher, realized that his students didn’t have school supplies. That begat an annual back-to-school event, which began an organization that is now at home in a 20,000 square foot former YMCA on 10 acres of land, where it hosts job fairs, offers GED and other educational programs and job training, and much, much more. You can find out about volunteer options here.

Help Specific Communities

You may be interested in helping a specific group or community. Here are some of those options.

Refugees. Church World Service works to support refugees in North Texas by welcoming them at the airport, providing transportation, practicing English, and more. You can find out more here. The faith-based nonprofit For the Nations has been a leader in refugee assistance for several years. You can volunteer here.

Survivors of Human Trafficking. New Friends New Life has been working with victims of human trafficking in North Texas by providing support, shelter, and educational opportunities. You can volunteer here. Mosaic Services offers victims of human rights abuses in North Texas. Find out about the organization’s volunteer opportunities here.

Survivors of Domestic Abuse. The Family Place and Genesis Women’s Shelter both offer support, housing, and other assistance to people leaving abusers. You can volunteer with the Family Place here and Genesis here.

The LGBTQIA Community. The Resource Center has offered a variety of programs for the LGBTQIA community for decades. You can find out about volunteer opportunities here. Dallas Hope Charities provides a homeless shelter with an LGBT youth focus and more. Learn about volunteer opportunities here. Gay for Good DFW regularly features volunteer options across North Texas. You can check them out here.

Fur Friends. There are a variety of rescue organizations, including Dallas Pets Alive, Operation Kindness, the SPCA, and DFW Rescue Me, and all are regularly looking for volunteers and fosters. Need a little less commitment? Dallas Animal Services offers Doggie Daycations, where you can take a dog for a day of enrichment, and opportunities on July 4 and New Years Eve to help keep dogs calm while the fireworks go off.

Senior Citizens. Depending on your skillset, the Senior Source offers a variety of options, including signing up to visit people in long term care facilities. The Visiting Nurse Association offers opportunities through its Meals on Wheels program, which offers nutritious meals for homebound seniors. Find out more here.

Children. Love throwing birthday parties? The Birthday Party Project does just that, for children who are experiencing homelessness. You can find out more here. Vogel Alcove provides support to families living with poverty, focusing on the children in the family especially by offering early childhood programming, child health services, mental health services, and assistance for school-aged children. Learn more here. Big Brothers Big Sisters matches kids looking for mentorship and friendship with adults ready to give it. You can read more about the program here, and find out how to become a Big here. Dallas CASA has been training volunteer advocates to serve as court-appointed child advocates for decades. You can find out about the training and more here.