April is volunteer appreciation month. Contra Costa Senior Legal Services relies on volunteers to help us serve our clients. We appreciate all that our volunteers do for us. Volunteers help us amplify our impact in the community and allow us to reach more seniors.
There are many ways to volunteer with Contra Costa Senior Legal Services. We have volunteer opportunities for people who are attorneys and people who are not attorneys. We also have volunteer opportunities for notaries. Click here to reach out about volunteering with us.
Intake
At CCSLS, we get phone calls every day from seniors seeking assistance. We rely on volunteers to help us answer the high volume of calls we receive. Many struggling seniors have a hard time finding help and having an intake volunteer answer their call can be very reassuring for these seniors. Our intake volunteers help us process new clients and give referrals to seniors who need assistance that we cannot provide. Without our volunteers, we would struggle to handle all the calls we receive. Anyone who can answer a phone call can help with intake.
Clinics
Contra Costa Senior Legal Services runs a number of legal clinics around Contra Costa County. We use volunteers to staff these clinics, including volunteer notaries at our advance health care directive and durable power of attorney clinics. These clinics provide one-time assistance to seniors. Our clinics include:
- Weekly self-help restraining order clinic
- Simple wills clinics
- Advance health care directive clinics
- Durable power of attorney clinics
- General legal clinics helping with a variety of areas of law
Outreach
Outreach is an important part of our work. We give know-your-rights presentations to seniors and professionals who work with seniors. We give presentations on scams, elder abuse, tenants’ rights, preparing a will, and incapacity planning. Volunteers can help us give presentations. We also attend senior resource fairs around the county, which volunteers can assist with. At resource fairs, we answer questions about our services and help spread the word about the work we’re doing. Attorneys and non-attorneys are welcome to volunteer with outreach.