Jobless Atlantans stay busy volunteering

For years at the Coca-Cola Co., Deborah Cross took part in the company’s days of service initiatives, volunteering her professional expertise to nonprofits that often couldn’t afford her kind of brainpower otherwise.

Cross says she enjoyed serving in that way, but that is where her volunteer efforts began and ended.

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BRANT SANDERLIN / bsanderlin@ajc.com

Marketing and advertising professional Deborah Cross, left, meets with Hands on Atlanta client Dr. Deborah Cross of Hyer Dynanmic Health Discoveries.

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BRANT SANDERLIN / bsanderlin@ajc.com

Cross had always volunteered during days of service initiatives with her job and so when she was laid off in 2007 she decided to make it a regular part of her routine, volunteering at Hands on Atlanta. Although Cross was able to find a job, she still volunteers in the agency’s skills-based inititive.

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Then, in 2007, Coke laid off Cross after 20 years with the company, she said.

“You can always rebuild your life, but losing my health-care insurance was devastating,” said Cross, 50, whose husband of 25 years was undergoing cancer treatments.

Walking the halls at Piedmont Hospital, however, she discovered that there were people who were far worse off.

She decided then to make volunteering part of her new routine. What she found was that she had launched herself into a new orbit, becoming part of a whole pool of well-educated, highly skilled volunteers looking for ways to get off the couch and stay engaged in the real world.

As the number of layoffs continues to rise, local and national nonprofit groups say increasing numbers of people like Cross are showing up with time on their hands.

For them, volunteering is a way to ride out the recession and at the same time take advantage of opportunities to network in the hopes of eventually landing a new job.

Cross began with Hands On Atlanta, providing marketing and strategic planning to a local nonprofit, where she made recommendations for achieving their short- and long-term goals and how to use their limited resources to best achieve those goals.

“Networking means business contacts,” Cross said. “My next employer was one of the people who saw me in action and said, ‘Let’s go to lunch and talk. I could use someone like you.’ “

Now Cross is chief marketing officer for a health information technology startup in Atlanta.

Monique Shields, director of community and civic engagement at Hands On Atlanta, said attendance at the non-profit agency’s volunteer orientations jumped 100 percent during the first quarter of the year.

“Orientations that typically have 50 attendees are having 100 volunteers, sometimes more,” Shields said.

Those volunteers, she said, encompass every race and income level and include many who have either been laid off or inspired by President Obama’s call to service.

“It’s a great benefit to us,” Shields said. “We rely heavily on volunteers to help us achieve our mission and to serve the community.”

Milton Little, president of United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, which like Hands On Atlanta operates an online volunteer-matching service, said he too has seen an increase in the number of people seeking to volunteer.

Last year, Little said, the agency had 5,600 people inquire about opportunities.

“From January to March this year, we had almost 1,500 calls, about a 28 percent increase over the same period last year,” he said.

The reasons vary.

Some people have been in the private sector, Little said, and are looking to see what opportunities exist at non-profits. Others are seeking ways to make a difference. And some just want to use the opportunity as a way station until a new job becomes available.

Whatever the motivation, this is a boon for non-profit agencies, which are seeing an influx of people seeking help because of the recession.

“If they can supplement their workforces with talented individuals, that can only be helpful,” Little said.

The benefit is being felt from food pantries to food banks to city parks departments.

Linda Freund, director of the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry, said that about half of the people who come in wanting to help have been laid off.

Not only does volunteering make them feel useful, she said, “it looks good on their resume.”

Volunteers at Atlanta parks have doubled over the past year, and parks officials in Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties say volunteerism is up sharply.

Gary Galloway, volunteer services coordinator for Gwinnett County Senior Services, said the increase in volunteer time at his agency has come just in time.

“We’re at the point where we’ve used all our notches to tighten our belt,” he said.

In 2006, senior services had 30,100 volunteer hours. That total increased to 39,800 in 2007 and up to 45,200 in 2008.

Galloway, who expects a similar increase this year, said the rough economy is bringing in a new breed of volunteers. Corporations are finding it smarter to provide labor in lieu of a donation check and many Baby Boomers are trading in their exotic vacations for more meaningful experiences locally.

“Every week, I hear something about a person who lost his job, and he says ‘I want to keep my mind, body and spirit engaged,’” Galloway said.

When Ken Pierannunzi, 49, got a pink slip just before Christmas, his wife urged him to volunteer at Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry.

“I went into it thinking I was going to help other people when in reality, the co-op saved me,” Pierannunzi said. “After being laid off, I had nowhere to belong. Monday to Friday was a pretty lonely existence.”

At the co-op, he said, he felt productive helping clients fill orders, stocking shelves and sometimes even holding babies.

Three months, later, Pierannunzi found a job at an Alpharetta data company, but he said, “I’m going to continue volunteering.”

So will Cross, who is described by Shields as a “priceless asset” and who was nominated Georgia Volunteer of the year in 2008 by Hands On Atlanta.

“I love giving back to people,” Cross said.

Staff writer Patrick Fox contributed to this report.