Get Involved

Volunteer

NAMI San Fernando Valley is an all-volunteer organization.
We are always in need of volunteers. Everyone has strengths.
We welcome you to help us reach out to the community and to serve families and individuals living with mental illness. With just a few hours a week, or even a few hours a year, you can help us continue with our many programs. These include Family to Family classes, Peer to Peer programs, speaker’s meetings, Care and Share support groups, lending library, our newsletter and website, Health Fairs and other outreach events throughout the greater San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valley.
If you would like to volunteer, or help us in any way, contact us by email or call us at 818-994-6747 and leave us a message. A NAMI San Fernando Valley volunteer will be in touch as soon as possible.

WRITE THE BOOK ON MENTAL ILLNESS
TELL YOUR STORY SHARE YOUR WISDOM

NAMI SFV Members have been busy this summer contributing moving personal stories of the trials and triumphs of living with severe Mental Illness. To date 36 individuals have taken part in the project, sharing the wisdom and insight of their experiences. These stories are being compiled into a Wisdom Legacy book that will be available as a keepsake to all NAMI SFV members and will be provided free of charge to community organizations that will benefit from a deeper understanding of living with mental illness. If you have not already contributed your story, there is still time. Contact Special Projects Chair, Joe Conrad.

Volunteer Opportunities

Current Volunteer Opportunities
National Alliance on Mental Illness San Fernando Valley

How would you like to help?
Data Entry____Events& Activities ____Fundraising____ Health Fairs____ Marketing___Membership ____ Newsletter____Publicity____Resources___ Speaker’s Bureau____Telephone Follow-up_____ Other____

ACTIVITIES : BOWLING LEAGUE
Help us spread the word, and help to raise funds to continue with our new
NAMI San Fernando Valley Bowling League
NEXT BOWLING NIGHT COMING SOON!
Thanks to member Milton Decker, we have enjoyed bowling nights at Canoga Park Lanes in September and October where fun was had by all who attended. Everyone bowled two games and some very good scores were posted. These Bowling League evenings allow individuals living with mental illness, family members and friends to enjoy an evening of social interaction and just plain fun. Contact Milton Decker for more info on bowling and other activities.

ANNUAL FUNDRAISING WALK - NAMI WALKS for the Mind of America
NAMI San Fernando Valley primary source of operating income is from the annual fundraisng NAMI WALKS in October. This ensures we can continue to provide important services, programs and information / resources FREE OF CHARGE to our community. Please consider helping us as a WALK COMMITTEE volunteer. You will meet a dynamic group of dedicated NAMI San Fernando Valley volunteers, learn how to support a fundraising campaign, and contribute to all the good things NAMI provides to families like yours. Contact our Walk Manager,
Beth Arnold, or call us 818- 994-6747 any time during the year to lend a hand.

ALL INVITED! Join us for NAMI WALK 2010 MEETINGS
NAMIWALKS for the Mind of America 2010 is going to be here before you know it! Get started now and join us is Saturday October 2nd 2010 for our annual fundraising walk. Raise $100 or more and receive a NAMIWALKS T-shirt
Rain or Shine! Contact Beth Arnold for NAMI WALKS info today.
Wed., Sept 01, Sherman Circle center -Room 10 at
14545 Sherman Cir., Van Nuys (near Van Nuys and Van Owen) Our monthly SFV walk volunteer meeting - the first Wednesday of every month. I will provide an overview of the walk timeline and activities. Feel free to bring friends and family.

Beth Arnold, NAMI-SFV Walk Coordinator (818) 994-6747
Sponsor us at: nami.org/namiwalks09/los/sfvalley

COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
NAMI SFV needs novelists-in-training, journalists-on-hiaitus, ink-stained scribblers, and social-networking junkies to fill in the blanks on our Communications Committee. Contact for more info.

We meet once a month at the same time and place as our Walk Committee, the first Wednesday of the Month from 7:30-8:30pm at the Sherman Circle center Room 15 at 14545 Sherman Cir., Van Nuys (near Van Nuys and Van Owen Parking is a challenge but we promise your time circling the block will be rewarded with an energetic meeting that puts your skills to work).

We need your help to create reports, press releases, PSAs, web content, funding appeals, advocacy alerts, calls to action, news features, letters to the editor...the opportunities to write go on and on. The most important characteristic we need in this Committee's toolkit is an unwavering commitment to making a difference for individuals and families living with mental illness.
Contact Julia, Communications Committee Chair today! Join to support NAMI SFV community based programming provided FREE to families caring for a loved one with severe mental illness and individuals living with mental illness.
The Communications Committee :

• Writes and distributes PSAs, Press Releases and Media Alerts.
• Responsible for identifying opportunities to attend community fairs and health fairs, service organization meetings, faith based gatherings, and media outlets to present information about NAMI SFV programs and services.
• Encompasses our NAMI SFV printed and e- newsletters, our promotional materials, our outreach, media and PR activities and awareness raising activities related to our affiliate and our annual NAMI WALKS for the Mind of America fund-raising walkathon.
• Updates our website, announces and promotes events ( including our Expert Speaker Meetings, our FREE family to Family Classes and Family Support Groups, our new bowling league, our NAMI WALKS 2010 fundraiser and more )
• Keeps our community informed of upcoming actvities and reaches out to the community on all levels to ensure we reach and provide services to those in need.
• Updates RESOURCES. If you have additional information on services available free of charge or at low cost that may help our families, or wish to help us UPDATE resources, contact our resource expert, Jim.
  

DATA ENTRY / RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Help us research and enter updated resources and information on services for NAMI SFV website and e-newsletter.
Enter handwritten email addresses, names and other contact information to NAMI-SFV contact database. This is an ongoing project that requires computer and typing skills, some database management skills will also be helpful, and attention to detail will be essential. Each month, at NAMI – SFV speaker meetings and outreach events, sign in sheets with contact information of people who have asked to be added to our mailing list need to be entered. This helps NAMI SFV provide important information and services to the community. Thank you for your interest in helping us help others. If you would like to put your computer skills to work to serve NAMISFV, contact us today!

EVENTS - OUTREACH VOLUNTEERS
Attend outreach events to provide information and answer questions on NAMI-SFV at community fairs, health fairs, special events. NAMI – SFV outreach efforts are on-going and there are opportunities at least once a month, sometimes more often, to help us get the word out to the community about NAMI SFV valuable programs and services. Contact Zee, our outreach chair, to learn more.
Thank you for your interest in helping us reach out to help others.

MEMBERSHIP
PHONES PHONES PHONES
NAMI SFV needs a special someone who has a computer, a phone, and some time to devote to service.

Simply help us call all the NAMI SFV members for who we do not have an email address to find out if they have an email address now. We do not share our mailing lists with anyone. This is just for our SFV affiliate use.

This is an ongoing job that will allow us to reach members of NAMI San Fernando Valley with important information of value to them and their loved ones with mental illness. All you need to succeed: Friendly Phone Manner. Unlimited Minutes on your calling plan. Persistence. Cheerfulness. Contact now.

STUFFERS - Help us Prepare Membership Packages
Volunteers are needed for ongoing group projects to print labels, prepare and stuff membership packages for NAMI-SFV, National Alliance on Mental Illness, San Fernando Valley. This is perfect for a small group service project and will help NAMI San Fernando Valley provide information to families and individuals in our community living with mental illness. Perfect for any group service
learning project, this will have a meaningful impact and can be completed on one fun day at your school site or at home. Materials must  be picked up from
NAMI-SFV in Van Nuys and returned to us within the same week. If you have a group, a few hours, and a desire to help, contact us today!
For this project, you must have a computer and printer as we will need your help to print labels ( we will provide the labels ) It is also essential that you have patience and good sense of humor....you'll be printing hundreds of
labels and sticking them on brochures ( we will also provide the brochures )
and folding them into envelopes so you'll enjoy this ( somewhat tedious ) project if you can find the fun in it. This small project can help countless people struggling with severe mental illness.

MARKETING - SOCIAL NETWORKING OUTREACH
Whether you are an individual, a family member or a member of a community, civic or faith based group, you can make a difference by helping us spread the word by adding us to your social networking communities: friend us on FaceBook or MySpace, add us as a Cause and challenge your friends to support us, Twitter us, Digg us, link us to your blog. However you do it, your help is important to the ongoing work of NAMI San Fernando Valley. We appreciate your help in spreading the word on how NAMI San Fernando Valley helps families and individuals living with mental illness. Contact us for more info.

SPANISH LANGUAGE TRANSLATION & OUTREACH
NAMI San Fernando Valley has a tradition of serving the Spanish speaking community of the San Fernando Valley and needs help to continue and expand that tradition. If you have spoken, written and/or public speaking abilities in Spanish, we need your help. Translate website pages and other materials from English to Spanish for us.
Contact NAMI San Fernando Valley for more information.

TECHNOLOGY VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR PUBLICITY - OUTREACH / COMMUNICATIONS & MORE
Do you want to help end stigma related to mental illness?
Help us reach out, spread the word, and make a difference in our community.
NAMI San Fernando Valley needs technology-proficient volunteers to help with a variety of projects related to data management, outreach and communications. We welcome you to help us with:

Data Entry
Database management
Website maintenance
Printing and Mailing
Health Fairs and Community Fairs - volunteer at our info tables
Fundraising - help us plan events and reach out to sponsors
Annual NAMI WALK
Advocacy and Policy Issues
Write for our newsletter
Write articles about us for your local newspaper
Write for our website or blog

Help us outreach to spread the word about our NAMI -SFV Programs and
services including FAMILY TO FAMILY classes, Expert Speaker Meetings,
Support Groups, Monthly Bowling night ( coming up October 23rd )
Train to be a Support Group Facilitator
and much much more

If you have a strong desire to make a difference and have a
passion for helping people living with mental illness...
If you have computer skills, organizational skills, or typing skills, we can
put them to good use.
If you like people and enjoy sharing information with others, we can use
your gift of gab to spread the word about NAMI-SFV.
If you like group projects, we can use your help to prepare Membership Information packets and other mailings and welcome your group to gather and make this happen.
If you like to work on your own, we even have virtual volunteer
opportunities that can be conducted at home.
If you wish to make a real difference and would like to make the commitment
to serve on a NAMI-SFV committee, we welcome you and invite you to attend an
upcoming meeting.
Contact us for more information.

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