Volunteer Center of Sonoma County

Volunteer wheels - this program operates Sonoma County's paratransit service, providing rides to people with a disability or a health condition that prevents them from using Sonoma County's regular bus services. Staff and volunteers drove more than 59,000 passengers over 760,000 miles to doctor visits, critical appointments and work sites. Volunteer wheels provides elderly and disabled residents and visitors in Sonoma County with the opportunity to live with a degree of independence they could not otherwise achieve. Volunteer wheels is funded through our service contract with Sonoma County transit and community contributions.

Court referral - Volunteer Center's court referral community service program is the referral agency for residents of Sonoma County who are assigned community service work by the Sonoma County courts or probation department. The program provides placement, follow-up, monitoring and reports on people referred to complete community service work. Those referred to the program may be from traffic court, adult diversion services, the adult and juvenile probation departments, or directly from the criminal and civil courts with conditional sentences. Our program also manages homeless court referrals in partnership with st. vincent de paul for people who are completing court mandated hours to vacate court fines that are barriers to obtaining their drivers license or access to housing. Referrals for community service work are made in lieu of fines or jail, as a condition of diversion or dismissal, or as an independent, sometimes mandated sentencing option. Clients are matched by holding a face-to-face interview to determine skills, availability and limitations. The court referral program also manages student volunteers from the Sonoma County office of education who are completing Volunteer hours for their school district.

Secret santa - in 2019, over 45,524 gifts were fulfilled and 1,115 families received assistance. Hundreds of community volunteers provided over 7,618 hours of support for this program ensuring the gifts make it to individuals and families in need.

Community Volunteer services- this service provides placement, back ground clearance, management and recognition to individuals who are passionate about giving back to our community. In 2019 over 4,000 volunteers provided 100,000 hours of service in Sonoma County.