City of Fishers offers one-stop shopping for volunteers

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Fishers-area residents who want to get involved in the community through volunteering can find all the information they need on one webpage, hosted by the City of Fishers.

Amy Crell is the force behind the VolunteerFishers web page, which she helped launch after she joined the city in 2019 as the volunteer coordinator. They had another platform for volunteers at that time, she said, but it was antiquated.

“So, I started doing some research and narrowed it down to this platform that we’re currently using,” she said. “Not only does it provide volunteer opportunities for the city, but it’s an opportunity for the nonprofits.”

The website is a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to volunteer in Fishers.

Crell said there are 55 agencies listed on the webpage, volunteerfishers.com, from the Good Samaritan Network, to Big Brothers Big Sisters, to Meals on Wheels. The city’s various departments also need volunteers regularly for events such as the weekly summer farmers markets, pulling invasive weeds at city parks and helping with the upcoming Spark!Fishers festival.

Through the volunteer website, Crell said, all those volunteer spots regularly fill up, usually resulting in a waiting list.

“When I joined the city, we had about 1,200 people on our (volunteer) platform, and we’re now over 4,500,” she said, adding that Fishers has a great volunteer community.

Businesses often look for volunteer opportunities to give back, Crell said, and school clubs sometimes require volunteer hours for participants. There also are retirees looking for constructive ways to stay involved, along with others who simply want to help out.

The city also offers stewardship opportunities, Crell said. Through that program, people can “adopt” and be in charge of taking care of a little free library location, or part of the Nickel Plate Trail, or a fire hydrant, for example.

“It’s a great resource for residents to see all the opportunities that are available to them,” Crell said. “Hopefully it will allow people to get more involved in the community, either individually or as a family.”

The webpage launched in spring of 2021, Crell said. Part of its appeal is how simple it is to use. People interested in volunteering can go to the webpage, volunteerfishers.com, and either look at the different agencies listed — each with a link to their own website — or look at the list of volunteer opportunities. Volunteers using the page must create a profile. Some volunteer opportunities require background checks, and the page takes the person through that process, too.

Crell said the great thing about the volunteers webpage is that it benefits everyone.

“Because it’s a pool of volunteers all in one place,” she said. “So, if one nonprofit joins the platform and they bring on 100 of their volunteers, those 100 volunteers have access to all these other opportunities and all these other nonprofit organizations and their needs. It’s a win-win.”


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