Get Started

Simple Steps to Get Involved

CHA is a 100% volunteer-run organizing drive of low-income service, temporary, part-time and seasonal workers and their families

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No Minimum

Flexible Hours

Volunteers are needed daytimes and evenings, whether for a day, an hour, a week, a summer, or anytime. Call CHA today at (707) 591-9573.

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On-the-Job Training

No Experience Needed

We use “on-the-job” training, so anyone can learn while taking action and making a difference. No prior experience or special skills are needed. Volunteers are productive from their first day in!

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Learn Organizing Skills

Dare to Care

Participation is open to all those who dare to care and invest the time. Poverty wages force working families to “choose” between putting food on the table, paying rent and utility bills. Your participation can make a difference for service workers organizing to end poverty conditions.

How It Works

No Machines or Automated Phone Trees, Just Human Contact

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You Call Us

Call us seven days a week, including evenings.

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We Answer!

A volunteer will answer your call and any of your questions.

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You Schedule to Volunteer!

No prior experience is necessary and you are productive your first day as a volunteer!

(707) 591-9573

CHA’s phone lines are staffed by volunteers who are ready to answer your call!

YOUR TIME WILL MAKE THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE AT CHA

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GET INVOLVED TODAY!

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YOUR TIME WILL MAKE THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE AT CHA 🕑 GET INVOLVED TODAY! 🕑

An illustration with a gold hue to it of a variety of types of workers of various ethnicities looking proudly into the distance.

Illustration by Jorge Mascarenhas

Organizing As a Profession

Full-time Organizers Needed!

CHA provides organizer training through all our activities, thus giving volunteers the opportunity to become professional volunteer organizers. You must dare to care and invest the hard work to learn while doing, in other words, engage in “on-the-job training.” Volunteers are needed 365 days a year, daytimes and evenings, whether for a day, an hour, a week, a summer, a year or for the rest of your life! We own a strategy, a method and have a track record of success. The only missing ingredient is you! Call CHA today!

Below, you will find a list of regular activities that you can participate in. Orientations are provided to new volunteers prior to the start of any activity. Call our office and talk to a volunteer to schedule or ask questions.

Don’t wait – call today!

Weekly and Monthly Volunteer Activities

  • A smiling female and another masked person carry boxes of food along the front of an apartment with another male following behind them.

    Food Distribution

    Three times per week

    CHA members may enroll in the association’s budget-saving Benefit Plan II program and participate in weekly free-of-charge supplemental food distributions featuring fresh organic produce and other nutritional foods. Volunteers are needed year-round to pick up, sort, box and distribute food to enrolled members.

  • A man pointing do a whiteboard teaching to a groupd of people at a large wooden table in an office.

    Medical Education Session

    Monthly

    Volunteer physicians and registered nurses provide health education sessions on a variety of health topics such as diabetes, high blood pressure, nutrition and exercise.

  • A group of for men and women around a desk workign together. Christmas lights decorate the room.

    Legal Advice Session

    Monthly

    Volunteer attorneys present general legal information in group settings as well as private legal advice consultations, accompanied by a CHA lay advocate. Topics include wage theft, evictions, discrimination and predatory lending. CHA needs more volunteer attorneys, legal advocates and interpreters.

  • A Latina woman in a red shirt sorts clothing on tables in various tubs, boxes and containers.

    Clothing Distribution

    Weekly

    CHA’s Benefit Office is located directly behind CHA’s main office on Fourth Street. Volunteers assist with sorting and organizing clothing, doing benefit intakes and assisting members in filling their clothing requests.

  • A younger male on the telephone and an older female work together at a table with bouquet of flowers on it.

    Benefit Advocacy

    Weekly

    Domestic workers, service workers and other low-paid workers can’t win without organization. CHA teaches the skill of advocacy. You can learn how to fight to keep a member’s lights on, how to help workers win back unpaid wages, how to expunge medical debt, and fight government and corporate denials to the most vulnerable members.

  • A group of men and women around a table with a standing Latina woman teaching.

    Survival English Class

    Weekly

    Volunteer teachers lead Survival English Classes that provide CHA members education from the perspective of being able to communicate with their employers, landlords and others, as well as help build their organization to address the cause of our collective problems.

  • A smiling white female in a blue shirt and a smiling Latino male in a red shirt sign up a woman on the sidewalk near an apartment building.

    Membership Canvass

    Saturdays

    CHA membership canvasses are the lifeblood of our grassroots domestic worker organizing drive. Alone and isolated we cannot achieve anything; united we can win! Volunteers canvass door-to-door in low-income neighborhoods where members and potential members live to build organization where it’s needed the most.

  • Two males work together at a desktop computer in an office.

    Publication Session

    Weekly

    Join CHA's publication staff! You can learn – or help teach – how to produce the next issue of CHA's newspaper, the California Domestic Worker, to tell the truth about low-income workers organizing for economic justice, and our seasonal Sponsors Guide. We also need volunteers to design flyers. Call CHA!

  • One smiling male student signs up another smiling male student with a clipboard at an information table on a sunny day with grass behind them.

    Community Outreach

    Weekly

    Volunteers set up information tables in front of grocery stores, at local community events and other locations to promote CHA so that others can join our cause. This is one way CHA enlists new friends and participants to come in and make a difference. Please call if you can volunteer or if you know of a location where CHA can set up an information table.

  • A group of men and women of various ages work together on a mailout around a large wooden table.

    Mailout Session

    Weekly

    Volunteers prepare and send letters about our current campaigns to people who have joined CHA and have expressed an interest in volunteering or supporting CHA. We need volunteers to help with the daily letter mailouts as well as to assist with the bulk mailing of CHA’s membership newspaper and Sponsors Guide.

  • Four young people using telephones, around a table with papers and water bottles on it. Others are partially visible around the table as well.

    Phone Training Session

    Weekly

    Volunteers are essential to all of CHA’s activities year-round. Volunteers conduct group telephone training sessions to call members about upcoming benefit activities and re-contact interested individuals met on community outreach about participating with CHA’s organizing activities scheduled each week.

  • Four people speak to a university classroom of around 80 students.

    Speaking Engagements

    Call to Schedule

    CHA volunteers and members speak to college classes, clubs, church groups and other groups to teach about the economic problems CHA’s members face and how people from all walks of life can participate in building solutions from the bottom up.

Participate as a volunteer in seasonal events and campaigns

  • A white male in a grey jacket with a clipboard and a newspaper talkign to a Latino man and woman in a parking lot on a California winter day.

    Winter Survival Campaign

    While winter weather can get into the freezing temperatures, CHA heats up to protect the lives of low-income workers suffering from high heating costs, lack of adequate winter wear and loss of work hours due to seasonal changes. Volunteers play an important role in filling benefit requests from members and canvassing in low-income neighborhoods to check on elderly residents often confined to their homes.

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  • A group of children play a parachute game on grass at a park with people behind them.

    Spring Expansion Campaign

    CHA’s Spring Expansion Campaign is a material form of hope for our collective future. Along with an expansion of CHA’s Benefit Program and community outreach, the campaign includes CHA’s Spring Family Brunch and Children’s Easter Egg Hunt which features a hearty meal, games, prizes and fun for membership families.

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  • A smiling young Latino holding a table top fan in one arm and pointing to it with his other hand.

    Summer Survival Campaign

    Outdoor workers like farm workers, construction workers and landscapers face the negative health affects of increasingly hot summers. In addition to maintaining CHA’s Office Central as a cooling center, CHA volunteers assist with utility advocacy as PG&E bills go up while families attempt to stay cool. Volunteers also organize collections of bottled water and household fans as many CHA members don’t have air conditioning in their homes. Join CHA’s “fan club” and help CHA’s members beat the heat this summer!

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  • A smiling group of young mixed-race people holding up new backpacks outside.

    Back-to-School Campaign

    The expenses low-income working parents face for back-to-school clothes and supplies, medical exams for school entry and immunizations can break an already over-stretched budget. Our Back-to-School clothing and supply distribution can save CHA membership families up to $500 – money that can be used to pay for rent, utilities, food and medicines these families will otherwise be forced to do without.

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  • Four smiling volunteers hold up toys and hams next to an array of toys in front of a snowy winter backdrop.

    Holiday Campaign

    CHA's annual Children's Safe and Sane Halloween Party and chaperoned Trick-or-Treat for Domestic Workers is the first in a series of events organized by and for low-income workers and their families through the holiday season. In addition, CHA runs a budget-saving program for members to help other members meet seasonal needs such as holiday food basket distributions for Thanksgiving and Christmas time, and holiday toy distributions to parents for their private family gift giving to their children. Join the festivities!

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CHA

Green since 2000