Courtney Gioielli

Review of The Amherst Survival Center

Don't try to volunteer here, they reject perfectly...

Don't try to volunteer here, they reject perfectly good volunteers based on their personal preferences and availability. I am a college student who needed 8 hours of volunteer experience at a local organization for a large project grade in one of my courses. I even said I was willing to do much more than that, and even offered to come back to Amherst in the summer, from my hometown, to remain a volunteer. This was not "good enough" for them and they told my colleague and I that we were "just wasting our time" and that they "don't want anyone who is not ready to make this organization a weekly commitment." Last time I checked, any volunteers should be appreciated no matter what, and many people do not have the time to make volunteering a weekly commitment on top of work and school or what have you. If you have nothing else going on in your life, volunteer at this place, because that is the only way they will accept you! Also, the websites volunteer directions do not need to be followed at all. I emailed and phoned the coordinator countless amounts of times and nobody ever got back to me. The website instructs you to contact someone to sign up for an orientation and to show up to your orientation with an already filled out application printed from their site. Seeing as no one ever got back to me, I showed up and was greeted, quite rudely, by a woman who said to me "OH, you're not on my list for the orientation" with a very surprised look on her face when I showed that I had brought the application, already filled out. Everyone already there was sitting there filling out their applications, which confused me because the website specifically says to print your own and come with it completely filled out.