<bt>Volunteers in Arlington celebrated the one-year anniversary of the county's Community Role Models program Monday. The program's aim: to get 20- and 30-something adults involved in the local community, and it has worked, creating what County Board member Walter Tejada has called "the next wave of civic activists in Arlington."
Since its inception, the program has conducted several meet-ups connecting adults with the volunteer opportunities that interest them. Local organizations credit the program for enlisting new recruits. According to numbers from the county's volunteer office, the program's Web site now has 377 registered users, and in its first year it has brought local volunteer groups 185 new referrals.
"I like that when my working day is done, I have a chance to be a part of something that benefits the community," said Miles Grant, who volunteers on stream cleanups and other projects with Arlingtonians for a Cleaner Environment (ACE).
Grant said the program's events, like its May environmental summit, have also become a way for organizations to meet and coordinate efforts.
"There are all these environmental groups in Arlington," said Grant. "Just having them in the same room together was significant."
A volunteer for about seven months, Grant said the experience has been an eye-opener. Just touring a local park with ACE members and a county naturalist, he said, offered a new perspective on the natural world he sees every day.
"You see a tree for its beauty," he said. "But when you learn, when a naturalist tells you something like that tree is 150 years old and it would be worth $10,000 if it was cut down and sold on the open market, you look at differently."
HE HAS ALSO helped organize ACE's Hike and Happy Hour event in a local park and to conduct trash counts in Arlington's streams.
Along with the environmental summit, the program held a forum on community development that drew representatives from many local community groups. One was the Doorways for Women Temporary Shelter, a safe haven for battered and homeless women.
"When I was a kid in school, it was easy to find volunteer work," said Sara Girovasi-Marron, who serves at the shelter. "As I became an adult, I wanted a way to reconnect with the community.
Women account for 68 percent on the program's registered online users. Sixty-seven percent of volunteers are juggling community service with a full-time job, and most of those range in age from 25 to 34. The second-largest demographic is volunteers ages 19 to 24.
The program is partnered with more than 50 local volunteer groups focused on issues like environmental conservation, affordable housing, youth mentoring, public health and homelessness. And according to a 2004 report from the Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth and Families, the help is much needed. The report revealed that only 41 percent of 2-year-old children in some county neighborhoods are given proper immunizations. An estimated 20 to 30 percent of Arlington's high school students reported contemplating suicide.