You can make a huge impact through joining with a team of others concerned about the conditions of service and other low-income workers in Boston.

From college classes to congregations, labor unions, civic clubs and work places, groups large and small are welcome to participate with ESWA.

Doctors, dentists, lawyers, trades people, graphic designers, journalists and many other professionals can volunteer their professional skills to advance the just cause of service workers.

Weekly

ESWA 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 produce and other nutritional foods. Volunteers are needed year-round to pick up, sort, box and distribute food to enrolled members.

Call to Schedule

Volunteer attorneys present general legal information in group settings as well as private legal advice consultations, accompanied by an ESWA lay advocate. Topics include wage theft, evictions, social security disability and utility law. ESWA needs more volunteer attorneys, legal advocates and interpreters.

Weekly

Volunteers assist with sorting and organizing clothing, doing benefit intakes and assisting members in filling their clothing requests.

Weekly

Service workers, domestic workers and other low-paid workers can’t win without organization. ESWA 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.

Weekly

ESWA membership canvasses are the lifeblood of our grassroots service 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.

Weekly

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

Twice weekly

Volunteers set up information tables in front of grocery stores, at local community events and other locations to promote ESWA so that others can join our cause. This is one way ESWA 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 ESWA can set up an information table.

Twice weekly

Volunteers are essential to all of ESWA’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 ESWA’s organizing activities scheduled each week.

Call to Schedule

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

Weekly

Join ESWA’s publication staff! You can learn — or help teach — how to produce the next issue of ESWA’s newspaper, the Boston Service 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 ESWA!

Twice weekly

Volunteers teach ESWA’s non-English speaking members the basics of speaking, reading and writing in English both for day-to-day survival and to be able to communicate with fellow members in a common language as we unite to better our collective futures.

While winter weather can get into the freezing temperatures, ESWA 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 and disabled residents often confined to their homes.

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

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

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 ESWA membership families up to $600 — money that can be used to pay for rent, utilities, food and medicines these families would otherwise be forced to do without.

ESWA’s annual Children’s Safe and Sane Halloween Party and chaperoned Trick-or-Treat for Service 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, ESWA runs a budget-saving program for members to help other members meet seasonal needs such as holiday food basket distributions for Thanksgiving and Holiday time, and holiday toy distributions to parents for their private family gift giving to their children. Join the festivities!