Dear volunteers,

here is our (final edited version) November newsletter for you. We hope you are fine and enjoying the beautiful autumn. There are a lot of projects going on, you can choose between a regular service and more occasional events.

Great classics are awaiting you: soup kitchens, the Refettorio, Bioparc and:

Who says November, says samedi du partage!

Here we go again

For the past 17 years, Partage Foundation has been hosting a collection program to collect food and necessities for those in need twice a year. An amazing program with over 70 stores participating: Serve the City has 8 stores reserved for its volunteers. Do come and join us for a few hours on at least 1 of the 2 days of collection. Bring friends and/or family to this very special event.

1,500 volunteers (associations, companies, individuals, service clubs, students…) come every 6 months on these Fridays and Saturdays to collect over 200 tons of items.

Each day, more than 55 associations and social services redistribute the unsold (daily collected) and the collected items through Partage.

Please note in your agenda: Friday 25 November and Saturday 26 November, various time slots. Come join us for a good cause!!(In the meantime, creating food bags is continuing on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings 8:30h to 12h at Partage Espace Tourbillon, route de la Galaise 19A, 1228 Plan-les-Ouates. Sign up on our webpage! There is always a nice coffee break included…)

Fantastic beasts and where to access them

The private educational zoo “Bioparc” needs our help in developing a wheelchair access throughout the park. The day scheduled for the construction is Saturday 19 November 9h -13h, Route de Valavran 33, 1293 Bellevue. Sign up and bring your tools!

Sorting hats

Carrefour Rue is an essential organisation for marginalised people. They hold, among other places, a free distribution centre for clothes in Conches, route de Malagnou 154, 1224 Chêne-Bougeries. It is called Aboudaby Friperie généreuse (generous thrift shop).

Open Wednesdays and Fridays 14h-17h.

STCG sends 2 or 3 times a year a group of volunteers on Saturday morning to sort the donated clothes and clear out for the new season.

They have a permanent need for clothes donations adapted to the current season. Warm clothing and bedding items are now especially welcome. You can drop them off at Carrefour Rue, Rue Baulacre 10, 1202 Genève (leave it on their front porch, if nobody is there) or directly at Aboudaby.

Would you like to help out from time to time in the afternoons open to the public? Sign up and project manager Vera Detmer will get in touch with you.

Same procedure as every month

Take a look at our website regularly to keep up with new projects. We continue the old ones with renewed enthusiasm, tackle new ones; and if you have knowledge of a project that would correspond to our purpose, don’t hesitate to let us know and we might be able to develop it.

Looking forward to seeing you again or meeting you, contact us when you have questions or comments.Cheers, the STCG team

If you can read the following French text you may apply for one of these Salvation Army needs. 

Enter your preference in the comments when you sign up and you will be contacted.

( I know we have English only speakers serving at the Hôtel Bel’Espérance, should you be interested )

Centre-Espoir (Rue Jean-Dassier 10, 1201 Genève, à côté de la gare Cornavin) :
Un lieu ouvert 24h/24h et 7/7 jours où sont accueillis 122 résidents ayant des problèmes psychiques.
Activité :
(1x par semaine)
Repas offert au bénévole
Aide à la logistique du restaurant et contact avec les usagers.
Horaires du bénévolat : Du lundi au dimanche (besoin d’aide plutôt le week-end) : 11h00-13h30 ou 17h00-19h00

Le Passage (Rue du Valais 10, 1201 Genève, à côté du quartier des Pâquis) :
Centre d’hébergement d’urgence ouvert 24h/24h et 7/7 jours pour les personnes en situation de précarité (44 hommes adultes et 18 hommes mineurs).
Activité :
(1x par semaine)
Repas offert au bénévole
Aide à la mise en place, distribution des repas, à laver la vaisselle et contact avec les usagers.
Horaires du bénévolat :  Lundi au dimanche de 18h00 à 21h30.

Hôtel Bel’Espérance (Rue de la Vallée 1, 1204 Genève, dans le quartier de Rive)
Hébergement d’urgence ouvert 24h/24h et 7/7 jours pour 30 femmes seules avec enfants réfugiées ukrainiennes et 30 femmes seules en situation de précarité.
Activité :
(1x par semaine)
Repas offert au volontaire
Aide à la mise en place, distribution des repas, à laver la vaisselle et contact avec les usagers.
Horaires du bénévolat : Lundi au dimanche de 11h30-14h30 ou 18h30-21h30

Le Phare (Rue Jean-Jacques-de-Sellon 3, 1201 Genève, à côté de la gare Cornavin)
Lieu d’accueil pour toutes les personnes en situation de précarité ouverts au public les lundis, mercredis et vendredis : 10h-14h et le samedi : 9h-12h
Activité :
(1x par semaine)
Repas offert au bénévole
Aide à la mise en place du lieu d’accueil (préparation du café, de la soupe, des repas, rangement, vaisselle et contact avec les usagers).
Horaires du bénévolat :
Lundi, mercredi et vendredi 9h30-14h30
Samedi 7h30-12h

Avec mes meilleures salutations

Sergio Vintem | Genève-Grottes
Mobile +41 77 459 29 01

Saturday 15 October. Bioparc needs our help in insulating a therapy tent and make a wheelchair access path from 9am-1pm. Rte de Valavran 33, 1293 Bellevue, Switzerland

Signup the STC website: http://ServeTheCityGeneva.ch

If you speak a little French or can bring a French speaking friend this may be of interest.  Although some of the projects may not require any French.  But may be of great help for one of Genevas great social service providers. 

Hello: Serve The City,  from Carrefour-rue and Radio Sans Chaine 

Carrefour Rue’s radio station : Radio Sans Chaîne is a web radio giving voice to people who don’t express themselves often in mainstream media. At Radio Sans Chaîne, they can express themselves on both sides of the microphone. Check our site : https://www.radio-sans-chaine.com 

Wednesday October 19, from 2pm to 8pm, Radio Sans Chaîne is opening its doors, rue Baulacre 10, inviting people to discover the people who have been invited at our radio station : artists, social activists, athletes, humorists, people of all horizons with life experiences. There will be some food, good vibes, demos, stand-upers, a movie, 3 hours of open live studio, etc.! 

Everyone is welcomed!

We also need some help from those of you who have some time to make this day a lively and fun day.

Once you subscribe to volunteer through Serve The City, send me the task number or task numbers if you want to help with time periods.

Thank you so much in advance!   

Natacha Perriard

Social worker  Carrefour Rue

OCTOBER 17, MONDAY 2pm – 4pm

Task 1: 4 People to help us cook some cakes, cookies, soup, dips at the Jardin de Montbrillant between 2pm and 4pm

OCTOBER 18, TUESDAY 10am – 12pm

Task 2 : 4 People to help us make decorations and signs and cleaning up our 2 radio spaces (publishing room and sudio) as well surroundings.

OCTOBER 19, WEDNESDAY

BEFORE THE EVENT, from 10am – 1pm

Task 3 : 4 People to help us prepare the garden (decorating, organizing the space) as well as our 2 radio spaces (publishing room and sudio).

DURING THE EVENT

Task 4 : 2 People to help us serve appetizers and drinks and keeping the food space clean during the afternoon in the garden from 2pm to 5 pm

Task 5 : 2 People to help us serve some soup and drinks and keeping the food space clean from 5pm to  8pm in our small concert hall (Codebar)

Task 6 : 2 People to help us take care of the logistics (recycling, food storage, helping the other teams) from 2pm – 5pm

Task 7 : 4 People to help us clean up outside 6pm – 7pm

Task 8 : 2 People to help us inform the public on the program of the day and what is where and checking the good vibes 1:30pm- 4:30pm

(Some of the projects may need a little French.)

https://www.servethecitygeneva.ch/language/en/

New call for volunteers: my old friend Chef Walter needs your help! As you may already know, Chef Walter el Nagar, along with the participation of many STC volunteers, made over 30,000 take away meals during the first months of the Covid epidemic. He has now opened a new restaurant – The Refettorio – which serves about 50 free meals 5 evenings a week for the most vulnerable. He is now looking for dining room & kitchen helpers. Monday to Friday from 17:00 to 20:00.  Sign up here for your dates of interest – More info on Refettorio Geneva Location: Refettorio Geneva, 120 rue de Lyon, 1203 Geneva.  In addition, we still have an active need for Partage food sorters and… believe if or not, we will be creating 5,000 food bags until the end of the year!    Not to mention Partage sorting is now desperate for help. 

Dear volunteers,

Now we have done it! STC volunteers did a fantastic job, thank you so much! Samedi du Partage collected many pallets of products to be consolidated so it can be distributed where needed.

To help us with this, if only for 1 morning, please do come along and bring a friend or two! For safety reasons, due to the heavy containers and bins, they ask for only those 16 yrs or over. (We suppose if you look 16 that would work too!) They were not checking IDs last year…!

Samedi du Partage collected 2,000 tons of contributions, so now it needs to be sorted so folks in need can access it.!!

Starting in July, STC will need 10 volunteers each Monday and Wednesday morning from 8 to 11:45. Route de la Galaise 19A, 1228 Plan-Les-Ouates, 2nd floor.

Please indicate your Monday and or Wednesday dates, listed here; Mon. July 11,18,25 Tues. July 6,13,20,27.

Use COMMENTS to indicate your Help/s day.

If you would rather not do the walking around, we do need someone to look after sign-ups from their home computer!

On the 3rd floor, we are still creating 5,000 food bags per week for the marginalized of the community who have been affected by the economic effects of Covid. Signups there are also very much appreciated!

The dates for sorting after Samedi du partage for 10 pepole.

ThankYou.

THE RED SHIRT.!

What is under a Red Shirt? One would expect a heart that enjoys helping others. One who wants to make a difference, Someone who want to pay back to the community. Someone who has a servants heart. Someone who needs to earn service hours to complete a project. There are many reasons and all of them are respected and appreciated. Serve the City Geneva has over 3,000 registered volunteers and many have registered and participated in at least one of our many projects. It came to my attention a couple of times in the past few weeks something that I wanted to share.

The first was a party at Carrefour Rue to honor a couple of ladies retiring after many years of service. All the staff of CR were in attendance and many invited guests. The event had CR staff , photographers and CR supporters. There were over a half a dozen STC volunteers and I was the only one in a red shirt. It was also a publicity event for CR brochures, new releases and appreciation to all. I feel why does one not feel proud to be a benevol and show it? Next other events when people arrive at the project, put on their shirt, then take it off to ride to bus home. One would think that if you were happy to share your servants heart, you would make use of the shirt whenever possible. Perhaps you would be the one who someone might be asked “Who is Serve the City” and they may be one of our next volunteers. We have over 3,000 registered volunteers and most of them have found a project to help with. If you have worked on one of our events but have not yet received a red shirt do communicate with us at INFO. But don’t think we will not be asking you to wear it.. We at Serve the City are so proud of you! Willing to be registered to our organization looking for the right time and place to be of service. This is one amazing team and group of people. Blessing to all.