Get Involved

Volunteer Opportunities

Looking for a rewarding way to give back to your community? Interested in becoming part of an integral team dedicated to helping women and children living with abuse? The Shelter offers many volunteer opportunities for those in the community interested in helping with this important issue. Volunteer programs include:

  • Answering the 24-hour hotline
  • Assisting with the staffing of the emergency shelter
  • Facilitating children’s programs
  • Helping with special events and fundraisers
  • Assisting with clean-up days and maintenance projects
  • Helping with transportation
  • Interpretation services for the Spanish-speaking community
  • Providing a pet-safe home for victim’s pets

All volunteers must complete some level of training. The Shelter offers a full volunteer training session three times a year and also provides individual training on an as-needed basis.  If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please contact our Volunteer Coordinator by email or by phone at (434) 963-4676

Other ways you can help include making a tax-deductible donation to the Shelter or purchasing support materials that raise funds for the Shelter. Monetary donations can be made by check and sent to: Shelter for Help in Emergency, P.O. Box 1013, Charlottesville, VA 22902. For online donations click here.

What You Can Do to Enact Change

Learn more about issues related to domestic and sexual violence. Read books and articles, attend lectures, watch educational television shows.

Evaluate your own language, beliefs and attitudes about traditional gender roles, roles in relationships, and the issues of domestic and sexual violence as a whole.

Address un-informed remarks and offensive jokes that you may hear from other people. Re-educate people, or let them know that you are not tolerant of their behaviors.

Do not support movies, television shows or other forms of mass media that portray eroticized violence against women and children.

Write letters to newspapers, magazines, companies and politicians expressing your support or concerns about their practices.

Model respectful behavior for children.

Be supportive of people who are survivors of domestic or sexual violence. Do not practice victim-blaming.

Support organizations and legislation that empower people in our society who are most vulnerable to domestic and sexual violence.