Dear volunteers and STCG members!

Spring is beckoning and things are blooming! New missions await you.

We hope all is well with you and we’ll meet soon at one of our partners events,

Especially Samedi du Partage (Save the date!) needs to mobilise many volunteers. Without you, this project wouldn’t be possible. So, have a look at our sign-up page, choose a place, a date and a time slot, talk about it around you and come in numbers!

Big thanks for your engagement from the beneficiaries, may they have 2 or 4 legs!

The Upcoming Big Event – Samedi du Partage

A little earlier as usual this year (and the same weekend as Geneva Marathon…), Friday 8 and Saturday 9 May. Once again Serve the City will be managing 8 stores across Geneva, Meyrin, Versoix and Chavannes for the summer edition of the important twice-a-year «Samedi du Partage» food bank collection. We will need 100 volunteers to collect food and hygiene products for the beneficiaries. Registrations are open on our website – choose your preferred store and time slot! Bring friends and family!

During Samedi du Partage, over 90 stores in the Geneva canton invite shoppers to donate food and hygiene products – a staggering 400 tonnes of product are collected in Geneva each year! The donations are sorted over the following 2 months, before being distributed to support more than 2000 people and associations for the next six months.

Bioparc is alive and kicking as ever!

We got a request from the Bioparc: there is the team that goes constructing with Angela and of course, the yearly open doors function with many different tasks. But there is also a need for a more regular mission. Can we help Bioparc with some of our volunteers?

We would need a project manager for the task called Bioparc Protection Request. And several other volunteers, too, to be regularly available on Wednesdays and/or weekends for a couple hours. Please do signup on our website and let us know at what «frequency» you could come to this very special zoo. (You’ll find Tobias’, the Bioparc director, letter further down on this page).

A note from the Salvation Army

The Salvation Army Geneva has written to us in answer to our proposition to work with them.

Here some elements:

• Only long term engagements (3 months minimum)
• Regular weekly or monthly activities e.g. 1x week, 2x month)
• Shifts from 2 to 4 hours
• Morning, lunch time, evenings
• One-person assignments or in a group of maximum 4 persons
• In groups with the other volunteers (not necessarily STCG members)

If you are available on the long run, once or even twice a week, earliest shift starting at 9a.m., there are several places and missions to fill.

One of our old stomping grounds: “Jardin de Montbrillant” soup kitchen

Part of the Carrefour Rue network, the soup kitchen at Jardin de Montbrillant has been doing very well since the renovation.

There is a great group of volunteers already in place, but they could use some reinforcements. Other associations, churches and companies send people, but we from STCG are the most constant volunteers, coming in at least 3 or 4 days a week for sometimes 300 lunches. The serving needs more servers (and no, not the blinking beeping ones!)! Having extra help is always a good thing. Please do go on the website signup page for availabilities.

The «Refettorio» Restaurant project

The restaurant situated in the brand-new, if not shapely, building at Rue de Lyon 120 is serving 60 meals to his beneficiaries in the evening. For lunch, the restaurant serves a first class meal to paying guests (to very reasonable prices, compared to the quality), way of financing the charity project. This is certainly making a difference to many in Geneva these days. A number of you have already been signing up the past 2 months and we look forward to continuing our support. Want to have a scrumptious meal in an agreeable setting with nice people and be useful to the community at the same time? Then come join us!

For all projects: register first, and once you have, log in to sign up for events on http://www.ServeTheCityGeneva.ch

Many thanks for your continued help and support

The STCG Team

P.S. Here is the message Tobias Blaha, director of Bioparc, sent to STCG:

Dear Serve the City,

I hope this message finds you well.

Since our Bioparc has been growing in popularity (also thanks to you STCG), thanks a million!

We have increasingly been facing major challenges. […]

Specifically, we would need a team of 5 volunteers every Wednesday and on weekends when the weather is nice, to help protect our animals from visitors who access them without permission […].

Would this be something Serve the City could help us with? Your support would make a huge difference in keeping our animals safe and ensuring a positive experience for all visitors.

Thank you very much for considering this, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Warm regards,

Tobias

Here is the link from the BIOPARC team album.  Here is where you can see a little of what the Serve the City team is doing for the great resource for helping save the planet..