Amherst Survival Center — Local services in Amherst

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...

Great place to not get real homeless help. We wasted our time talking with a housing specialist (oooh oooh). The person did nothing for us but waste our time. We had an appointment the very next day which we went to a few minutes early, then we walked around looking at every person's face in the building to make sure and they were not even there. This is very crappy, let someone do the job that wants to do it. Just another one with a place to get paid for doing nothing. The food made my husband sick and he went to hospital by ambulance because it's too spicy for his digestive system, anyone ever think of having something people with digestive disabilities can eat. We were starving and freezing to death. We are still starving and freezing to death and nobody gives a rats but or will help us. Millions of $$ go through here and people who have houses get the money. Donate to a charity that ends homelessness....

Everyone at the survival center is AWESOME. Tthis day in age where we have the president pushing harvest boxes...gmo food and limited resources. We have a state representative Mindy Domb who was the director of the SC now working on behalf of those who need services and fighting on state level. educating the other states how to provide resources that point people in the direction of self advocacy and basic resources such a food housing jobs references and clothing. PLEASE CONTINUE TO DONATE AND THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL THAT DONATE. The SC provides Christmas dinner a New Years party, bus passes, yoga passes, children's museum tickets, clothing food pantry. truly genuine and truly helpful. thank you everyone...please lets spread this around the USA. Many international people emigrating also use the resources provided. ...