Please be our guest for one of the most inspiring evenings of the year, the 11th annual Montgomery Serves Awards, honoring some of our county's most amazing volunteers and community leaders. The event will be held on June 15 at the Silver Spring Civic Building. The recipients of the following awards will be honored:

Join us for an evening of good news! Learn more about our honorees and register to attend the June 15 event from 6:30 to 8:30 pm.

Kathleen Meany Stobie, a well-known and highly-regarded face of the Montgomery County Volunteer Center for 16 years, retires at the end of this month. She has served as the Americorps Seniors RSVP Director for 13 years, which included management of the AmeriCorps Seniors RSVP/AARP Tax-Aide Program. Her expertise and commitment extended to all older adult issues. Kathleen has been an active member of the County's Vital Living Network and currently co-chairs Age-Friendly Montgomery's Civic and Social Involvement Workgroup. She coordinated critical components of all aspects of the Volunteer Center, managing grants, playing a major role in specific events such as the MLK Day of Service and the Montgomery Serves Awards, and the Volunteer Center's day-to-day operations.

While she was an expert at big picture thinking, what staff and volunteers will miss most is the way she cared for each person with whom she had contact, responding to their needs with warmth, patience, and the willingness to go the extra mile. She had many connections and friends in the county and has made contributions both big and small (including wearing a singing birthday hat to celebrate each staff member's birthday). We wish her much happiness in retirement!

We get more than 14 hours of daylight this time of year. Put some of them to special use by volunteering. Find hundreds of ways to serve, including the opportunities below, on the Volunteer Center website. There are a number of great summer events in addition to ongoing opportunities.

To find more volunteer needs, use the red search box at the top of this email or visit our All Opportunities page and select one or more search filters (hidden under the wrench symbol when viewing on a mobile device) and/or keywords to narrow the results.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOSIAH HENSON! Help with a free day of family fun on June 18 from 9 am to 4:30 pm at the Josiah Henson Museum. Register by June 16. There are two shifts available. Use the Park's Volunteer webpage for more information and registration.

BE A TOUR GUIDE for the Germantown Historical Society. Guide a small group on a walking tour of a historical neighborhood after a training session. Minimum age: 16; register by June 24.

HELP WITH THE ANNUAL SUMMER PICNIC for the Down Syndrome Network of Montgomery County on June 26 from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm at Black Hill Regional Park. Volunteers can choose to assist with event set up, serving food, or supervising activities such as arts and crafts, coloring, chalk art, bubbles, parachute, and games such as relay races. Families of all ages will attend this event, and all of the families will have a loved one with Down Syndrome. Email Joy Stein with questions. Access the sign-up sheet and time slots here.

HELP WITH SUMMERFEST, an annual open house by the Olney Theatre Center with free performances, backstage tours, food trucks, and games all day on Saturday, July 23. Help welcome people, monitor games, and provide general hospitality. If interested in volunteering, please fill out the volunteer questionnaire. You must be fully vaccinated against Covid to volunteer. Register by July 22nd.

ASSIST WITH HOSTING THE CITI OPEN TENNIS TOURNAMENT, an annual hard court tennis tournament that is part of the US Open Series. This is an outdoor event and the minimum volunteer age is 16. To register, sign up here.

BE A WEED WARRIOR and help remove invasive plants with Rockville Weed Warrior on July 16 from 9:30-11:30. For questions, please contact Weed Warrior Leader Chuck Woolery at 240-997-2209 or chuck@igc.org. You may be contacted with a volunteer survey following this event.

BE A JUNETEENTH SPECIAL EVENT VOLUNTEER: County Executive March Elrich, in coordination with the Montgomery County Office of Human Rights, is hosting the Juneteenth Celebration at BlackRock Center for the Arts on Saturday, June 18. Volunteers are needed at the information booth, helping with family games, arts and craft activities, and event set-up and breakdown. Register here.

One-time event volunteering is lots of fun, but there are great organizations that need ongoing help. Here are ongoing opportunities to consider. Volunteering with an organization for a longer-term engagement provides opportunities to get to know the organization, its mission, and programs in a deeper way and to feel more personally connected to staff, volunteers, and a greater sense of purpose.

Opportunities marked with the graduation cap icon meet the MCPS guidelines for Student Service Learning (SSL) hours--but they're not just for students! Other opportunities may be eligible for SSL hours; visit the MCPS SSL website to learn more.

After an emergency shutdown in 2020 due to Covid-19 and an all-virtual approach to tax preparation in 2021. AmeriCorps Seniors RSVP, in partnership with the AARP Tax-Aide program, was thrilled to offer face-to-face tax preparation assistance to our older adults and low-income populations this year. Tax-Aide counselors and facilitators, along with clients, were grateful to be able to sit across the table from one another and interact directly during the tax preparation process with all Covid precautions in place. AARP required all volunteers to be vaccinated. The end result: our 120+ volunteers successfully recovered over $3.2M in refunds!

The tax season was not without its challenges. Local libraries, the sites for most of our preparation centers, were distributing free masks and test kits so alternate sits had to be identified. At the outset of tax season, the Covid transmission rates put the County at a red risk level so a modified version of the face-to-face model was implemented. Fortunately, Covid cases dropped by the third week and allowed for a return to the traditional model. More than 3,000 appointment requests were received by our virtual call center and more than 4,000 tax returns were filed. The clients, most of whom have had their taxes prepared through the AARP Tax-Aide program for many years, were very grateful for the help that they received.

Thanks to our community partners who served as tax preparation sites this season:

This season would not have been possible without the continued support of the Montgomery County Department of Recreation.

Thanks to:

Interested in joining the hard-working and congenial team next tax season? Visit the Tax-Aide Volunteer web page to learn how to get involved as a tax counselor, client facilitator (greeter), or scheduler. Or email the Tax-Aide Program to receive volunteer information distributed in the fall. Comprehensive, free training is provided to prospective tax counselors along with loaner Chromebooks. Schedulers receive loaner laptops/headsets to volunteer from home. This is truly an extraordinary team of volunteers.

AmeriCorps Seniors RSVP hosted a Tax-Aide Volunteer Appreciation Brunch on May 10, 2022. County Executive Marc Elrich praised the dedication of the volunteers and presented Certificates of Appreciation to Tax-Aide leadership volunteer, Bill Hicks, Janice Devine, and District Coordinator Ginnie Kiesewetter.

Summertime is a great time for students to serve and earn SSL hours! Students are required to earn 75 SSL hours to graduate from high school. In order to continue offering an array of SSL opportunities to students, MCPS will continue to allow nonprofit organizations to host virtual/remote SSL opportunities for students, in addition to traditional in-person experiences, beyond this school year.

The MCPS SSL guidelines for virtual/remote service will remain in place moving forward. Nonprofit-hosted virtual/remote SSL opportunities may be found here. Please reach out to the SSL office directly if you have any questions about the MCPS SSL guidelines for virtual/remote service.

Make a Difference, a monthly County Cable Montgomery program highlights the contributions of stellar county volunteers and organizations that work to better our community. In this program, Cedric Bobo and Lisa Gordon talk about Project Destined, which helps transform minority youth into homeowners and stakeholders in their communities.