Volunteers

ACO Volunteer Application
The ACO Board of Directors
The ACO Advisory Council
The ACO Youth Advisory Board
The ACO Volunteer Luncheon
Holiday Volunteer Programs

VOLUNTEERS are the helping hands that make everything we do at ACO possible. Without the 15,000 hours given each year by more than 800 volunteers, services and programs offered to families in need would not be possible. Volunteers may give as much or as few hours of their time as their schedule allows.

Volunteering is easy! Just download, read and complete the volunteer application and return the original to us by mail or in person at 301 W. Boyd, Allen, TX 75013 (across from the Allen Post Office). To insure everyone’s safety, all volunteers are required to pass a background check.

Here are some of the many different ways you can get involved:

Meals-On-Wheels are delivered five days a week between 10:30-12:00 noon. Volunteers can choose which route and which day they want to deliver. The volunteer(s) are given hot and cool containers to keep meals fresh. The route is mapped and localized where stops are close and convenient and most routes take about an hour. Many stay-at-home parents, retired people, as well as working men and women drive during the lunch hour. Companies send teams to deliver and friends and neighbors schedule to drive together. Summertime is an opportunity for students to earn community service hours when delivering meals with an adult and children to enjoy social time with seniors.
The Resale Shop provides a service to the community by providing clothing for families in need, a collection point for residents to donate gently used items, and a money generating store to fund vital programs. Adult Volunteers are critical to the store’s operations. Sorting clothing and items donated in the back of the store, preparing displays and items in the front of the store, and helping customers are all vital volunteer positions.
Special events are short term projects to raise funds for ACO and are volunteer intensive. The Wine Tasting, SpringFest FunRun, Golf Tournament, and other events are fun and provide major fund raising opportunities for ACO. They also provide a variety of ways for volunteers to help out.
Holiday Programs require many helping hands from volunteers.

Thanksgiving Food Drive: Boxes are filled with all of the food items needed for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Several hundred cardboard boxes are first decorated by children in the community. The cardboard boxes suddenly become works of art with paint, glue and colorful paper. Scout groups, school groups, and individuals all join in the fun of decorating the boxes with a Thanksgiving theme. Decorating boxes is a good time for students to earn service hours. As the decorated boxes are dropped off at ACO’s collection site, so are cans and dry good items collected from businesses, churches, and community groups. When the boxes are filled, hundreds of families come to collect their complimentary turkey and food for their own family dinner.

Christmas Toy and Gift Drive: Just as the food goes out to needy families, the gifts come in to prepare for Christmas. Children, teens and seniors are adopted by area families, individuals and businesses at Christmastime to "play Santa" and buy items from their wish lists. The new and unwrapped gifts are returned to ACO, sorted by volunteers and given out the week before Christmas. It takes many volunteers to make the adoption program work- from those adopting a child, to those on hand to accept gifts, log them in and sort them!

Care and Share Collections are items kept at the ACO office for emergencies. Many families come to ACO when they have exhausted all of their resources and their needs are basic. While ACO can send them to the Allen Food Pantry for groceries, the Care and Share Collections provides paper products and toiletries such as toilet tissue, diapers, shampoo, toothpaste, snack food items and more. While ACO stores these items at the office, it relies on the community to help to keep these items in stock. Volunteers hold collections in their schools and churches, within their neighborhoods, scout troops, civic clubs and organizations or just on their own. For a complete list of items needed, contact the ACO office at 972-727-9131.
FILL THE BUS! School Supplies Collections help each summer to provide the many supplies needed for several hundred students whose parents come to ACO for assistance. Supplies can add up quickly and families who face financial crisis welcome the help. Local businesses and individuals participate to help fill a school bus with donated new school supplies which will then be sorted and bagged by grades to be distributed. This is a huge undertaking for volunteers who spend many hours preparing the supplies in time for the first day of school. This is an opportunity for students needing volunteer services hours to work with their parents in the sorting process.
Office Assistance/ Mail Preparation Throughout the year thousands of pieces of mail are labeled and prepped for mailing to ACO friends and donors. Volunteers put in many hours to make this process happen. During special times of the year such as holidays or before big events volunteers are also vital to the office staff to provide the extra helping hands to take care of the paper work, phone calling, and organization.
Fix Up/Clean Up Projects ACO Volunteers join together for small clean up or fix-up property projects in the community. Minor repairs and maintenance on a neighbor’s home or yardwork is easily done when volunteers work with each other to paint, trim trees and bushes, mow lawns, etc. Homebound seniors are a favorite when it comes to helping others!

ACO Volunteer Application
The ACO Board of Directors
The ACO Advisory Council
The ACO Youth Advisory Board
The ACO Volunteer Luncheon
Holiday Volunteer Programs