Nicole Logan

July 1, 2008

She signed up through VISTA for Volunteer West Virginia, Nicole Logan told Putnam Rotarians today, and for $9,600 a year plus expenses she matches volunteers with service opportunities in southern West Virginia.

The heart of the program is an on-line database for seven counties in the southwestern corner of the state.

The site enables volunteers and civic groups to maintain records of service hours. At the same time, a club seeking volunteers for a community service project is able to connect with workers.

"It's like an employer posting a job," she explained. "You could post it by location -- say Putnam County. You could do by certain populations, by certain interests, by types of skills."

Volunteers may register according to type of service offered. "You can say your specialty is building things. If you are interested in the health care field, you can check that that's what you are good at. The data base will match you with opportunities in those fields."

Logan's project is in a partnership arrangement with Workforce -- West Virginia. "We encourage their clients to volunteer in order to build job skills.

"If you don't have a job, go volunteer, and you can be doing something while you're looking for a job." And it represents a plus in job interviews to be able to talk about your community service experience.

"Unfortunately, that's not reality for a lot of people," she noted. "The same things that keep them from getting a job are the things that keep them from volunteering -- things like child care concerns, like transportation."

For people without access to the internet, once they register as a volunteer they can arrange for telephone or other means of contact.

A member of Madison Rotary in Boone County, Nicole Logan is reaching out to other civic clubs, churches and schools to match volunteers and service projects.

Her assignment with Volunteer West Virginia ends in August, at which time the Marshall graduate from Portsmouth, Ohio, will enter law school in Florida.