Our Mission is Purpose
Helpertunity supports Recreation, Education & Volunteer Activities for Elderly, Disabled, and Itinerant Persons, with an emphasis on Creative Arts, Technology & Vintage Game Play. The organization was founded by Eileen, Callejas, MA, MBA, MS IDT, AC, Ph.D. (abd) - a former school teacher who spent her summers working in parks and recreation programs.
Helpertunity Co-Founder and Treasurer, Dorothy Gill, MA, puts her love of teaching kids and helping elders to good use as a Lead Volunteer, and as our Outreach Event Coordinator.
Our Story:
Eileen ventured into the Healthcare and Therapeutic Recreation field and began working in nursing homes as an Activities Director. She studied the needs of disabled homeless persons by volunteering for various agencies while completing her second graduate degree.
Eileen founded the organization Helpertunity to advocate for the advancement of client's rights for access to Healthcare Recreation across the full spectrum of the Human Services Continuum of Care.
Our Efforts:
Helpertunity participates in collaborations and efforts with: individual volunteers; facility activity staff teams; church and civic charity-support groups; benefit-corporations & employee volunteerism events, and university service networks. Helpertunity also collaborates with summer camps, after-school, and virtual-school programs that benefit deserving youth, immigrants, and disabled persons.
Through Helpertunity's direct outreach programs, disabled and elderly participants, and those in transition, can add purpose to their day by sharing kindness and helping others.
We use arts and technology to be expressive, so craft and recreation supplies, and advocacy for free wireless internet service & video-technology resources in care facilities and shelters, are a top priority for our organization.
Helpertunity's support includes the distribution of donated recreation resources and providing fundraising opportunities to support recreation equipment purchases. The charity also focuses on providing continued professional development training for care staff and recreation specialists, as well as offering research and development in the therapeutic activities and recreational volunteerism sectors.
Through individual projects by our disabled volunteers, the message and meaning of Helpertunity has begun to spread: despite physical and financial limitations, every person who wants to use their talents to reach out and help others should have the support and resources to make that happen. Individual volunteers and Activity Directors can apply to do special projects and raise funds specifically to support their efforts through Helpertunity.
Helpertunity is achieving advocacy through education. We are supporting access and training in healthy and productive uses of technology by care facility clients. We are promoting the upgrade to online continuing-education and mobile/distance communication access for facility Recreation Staff, as well as supporting large-screen virtual-visitation by talented community Volunteers. We are making a difference by advancing the Activities Industry by one day, and one project, and one person at a time; and it is beginning to have a ripple-effect of positive social change.
Helpertunity's educational support also includes sponsorship of technology education seminars for Activity Professionals, as well as other continuing-education topics like science & nature programming for facility-bound elders, the intergenerational sharing of vintage game-play and maker-skills, and designing adaptive volunteerism programming opportunities for disabled persons.
It is only by the ongoing support of our volunteers and donors that Helpertunity will be able to sustain its mission and efforts. Please join us in being a part of the solution by linking to our list of ideas on how you can "Get Involved" with Helpertunity today!