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Volunteer Spotlight: Scott Warren

Volunteers are a crucial part of the success and growth of many non-profit organizations and Riis Settlement is no exception. In the past year, 721 individuals have spent a total of 6,815 hours volunteering at Riis. With the hourly worth of a volunteer in New York currently listed at $26.86, that’s an economic impact of $183,050!

Our volunteers assist with various initiatives across all three of our main programs such as mentoring youth in our Riis Academy after-school programs, helping to serve meals to participants at our Queensbridge senior center, and tutoring English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students in our immigrant services department. The list of Riis projects on which volunteers have worked over the years is endless, and the commitment we have seen from these dedicated and selfless individuals has been truly inspiring. This article spotlights one of those many inspiring individuals, Scott Warren.

Scott has volunteered in our immigrant services department for the past year and is dedicated to making a difference in the lives of the people he works with.  On Monday evenings, Scott comes to our office after a long day of work and tutors our ESOL students who have requested the extra help. Currently, Scott is tutoring Colombian native Katia Salcedo, and she is making great gains.

When Scott isn’t volunteering at Riis, he’s fulfilling his duties as co-founder and executive director of Generation Citizen, a nonprofit organization which works to ensure that every student in the United States receives an effective action civics education, which provides them with the knowledge and skills necessary to participate in our democracy as active citizens. When asked how and why such a busy person finds the time to give back more, Scott responded “Although I run a non-profit, I spend a lot of my time fundraising and engaging in high-level strategy.  Volunteering at Riis Settlement offers me an opportunity to actually work with people. Additionally, I grew up overseas, spending significant time in Latin America – immigrant rights has always been a passion, so the opportunity to spend time helping with English is important to me.”

Scott’s past volunteer experience includes working with Habitat for Humanity in Ecuador, Argentina and the Dominican Republic; serving as the National Student Director of STAND (a national student anti-genocide coalition) during his college years; and serving as an observer in the first truly democratic elections in Kenya’s history in 2002. Scott’s passion for helping others find their own voice and gain autonomy is evident in all of his work, including his work here at Riis.

Scott first discovered Riis Settlement when he was looking for opportunities to volunteer and read about the important work we do with the immigrant populations in western Queens. He specifically chose Riis because of the community- oriented approach we take as a service provider, and we are certainly grateful he did.  Because of volunteers like Scott, we are able to enhance our programmatic offerings and build our capacity to affect an even greater number of participants on a daily basis. We could never be as impactful as we are if we did not have this valuable resource to leverage. We are indebted to Scott and all of our volunteers for the great work they do, and we encourage everybody to consider taking the time to give back in one way or another.  Whether it is here at Riis or another organization, we know you won’t regret it!

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