Focus Area
Basic Needs Volunteer Opportunities in Central Oregon
Matching organizations, in a different order on every visit
Furnish Hope is a Bend-based nonprofit furniture bank working to end furniture poverty in Central Oregon. It collects gently used furniture and household essentials and delivers them to individuals and families moving into stable housing, turning empty houses into furnished homes that foster permanency, comfort, and pride. Its boutique resale store, Furnish Hope & Home, along with home staging and design services, helps fund the mission.
Volunteers drive and co-pilot furniture deliveries, connect with recipients as community liaisons, gather and sort donations at the donation center, staff the Furnish Hope & Home resale store, and help remotely with admin work, events, and fundraising. Regular weekly shifts are offered, many roles don't require heavy lifting, and groups can schedule a team volunteer day.
Redemption House Ministries is Prineville's faith-based shelter and meals ministry for people experiencing homelessness. It runs Redemption House, a transitional shelter for women and families; Regeneration House, an overnight shelter with nightly dinner for men; and Craig's Compassionate Café, a community café where anyone can get a hot meal for a token price or by trading a chore, with volunteers also bringing meals to people living in camps. It also offers a food pantry and case management.
Volunteers cook and serve at Craig's Compassionate Café, help bring meals out to people living in camps, prepare dinners and sack breakfasts for shelter guests, sort donations and stock the food pantry, and help with facility upkeep and events. Church and community groups can sign up to provide meals.
Mutual aid group, co-led by Warm Springs tribal members, that works with Tribal Emergency Management to deliver clean drinking water to households on the Warm Springs Reservation while its aging water system is rebuilt. When the 2026 Bench Fire struck, the coalition grew to about 130 volunteers, shifting from quarterly to daily water runs and coordinating supply drives from Portland to Central Oregon.
Volunteers deliver drinking water to households on the reservation, run donation drives and drop-off sites around the region, sort and distribute supplies, and help track changing community needs. People can also join the steering committee, and the coalition especially welcomes Black, Indigenous, and People of Color to get involved.
Tax-Aide AARP Free tax returns for Low Income /Elderly
also known as AARP Foundation Tax-Aide
AARP Foundation Tax-Aide provides free tax preparation and filing help, with a focus on older adults and taxpayers with low to moderate income. IRS-certified volunteers prepare returns at sites across Central Oregon each tax season, and no AARP membership is required to get help or to volunteer.
Volunteers help provide free tax preparation for seniors and low/middle-income taxpayers, in roles ranging from Counselors (who prepare returns directly, after IRS certification training) to Client Facilitators (who welcome and assist clients) and Technology Coordinators. No tax background is required — training and IRS certification are provided each December/January, and volunteers serve during tax season, roughly February through mid-April. No AARP membership needed.
Redmond Oasis Village Project
also known as Oasis Village
Oasis Village is a low-barrier, cabin-style shelter village in east Redmond for chronically unhoused neighbors. Each resident has a private heated bedroom shelter, with a shared community building for showers, laundry, meals, and mail, plus onsite case management and supportive services to help people move toward stable housing. It grew out of years of volunteer homeless outreach in Redmond.
Volunteers and community groups have supported facility upkeep, in-kind donations, and shelter construction alongside partner churches and civic groups. Contact Oasis Village directly for current volunteer needs.
Sleep in Heavenly Peace
also known as SHP Central Oregon, SHP Deschutes County
Sleep in Heavenly Peace's Central Oregon chapter, started in 2020, builds and delivers free beds, with a mattress and bedding, to children ages 3 to 17 who are sleeping on the floor, on couches, or sharing beds, under the motto "No kid sleeps on the floor in our town." Powered by volunteers and local business partners, the chapter has built and delivered around 2,000 beds for Central Oregon kids, with community build days in Redmond, Bend, and Sisters.
Community Build Days every couple of months bring together dozens to hundreds of volunteers to cut, sand, drill, stain, and assemble bed frames, with tools and lunch provided and no experience needed. Kids 8 and up are welcome with their families. Volunteers also help deliver and set up beds with mattresses and bedding in kids' homes. Businesses, service clubs, and churches regularly host builds.
Saving Grace
also known as Saving Grace Imagine Life Without Violence
Saving Grace provides comprehensive services for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault in Central Oregon, including a 24-hour crisis hotline, emergency shelter, advocacy at hospitals and the courthouse, support groups, and community education and prevention, all built on the belief that everyone deserves a life free from violence.
Volunteers complete a 40-hour advocate training to work directly with survivors, staffing the crisis hotline, supporting shelter residents, facilitating support groups, and accompanying survivors at hospitals or the courthouse. Background check and 18+ required.
Family Access Network
also known as FAN, Family Access Network Foundation
Family Access Network (FAN) connects children and families in Central Oregon schools to essential resources, including food, shelter, clothing, health care, school supplies, and transportation, through FAN advocates placed directly in public schools across Deschutes, Crook, and Jefferson Counties. Founded in 1993, FAN has more than two dozen advocates at some 65 school sites and serves nearly 7,000 children and family members each year. The Family Access Network Foundation raises the funds that support the advocates and their work.
Behind-the-scenes fundraising and event support: helping run FAN's signature luncheon fundraiser, tabling at community festivals, sorting donated school supplies, hand-addressing donor mailings, and joining fundraising or event-planning committees. Opportunities are event- and project-based rather than ongoing, and don't involve direct contact with FAN families or students.
Powell Butte-based diaper bank, founded in 2024, that works through community partnerships to get diapers and hygiene supplies to low-income families in Crook, Deschutes, and Jefferson counties, helping parents and caregivers bridge a gap that SNAP and WIC don't cover. Separate from the NeighborImpact/Every Child diaper bank.
Volunteers unload, unpack, repackage, and store diapers, reach out to businesses and groups willing to host diaper drives, and help with fundraising events across Crook, Deschutes, and Jefferson counties. Groups can also run their own diaper drives.
M Perfectly
also known as M Perfectly Me, Ranch of Refuge, #ReadForRefuge
Bend nonprofit walking alongside women rebuilding their lives after homelessness, addiction, domestic violence, and human trafficking. Partnering with Abi's House, New Priorities, Deschutes County Parole & Probation, and other local programs, it teaches life skills in personal finance, health, communication, and careers, with SMART goal coaching that continues after women graduate. It is raising funds to build the Ranch of Refuge, a restorative community for women and children leaving crisis.
M Perfectly welcomes volunteers with skills to share: financial literacy, career development, health and nutrition, photography, hair, makeup, and styling, caregiving, and more. Volunteers lead workshops, coach women on their goals, and help with events and the Ranch of Refuge campaign. Book clubs, churches, and workplaces can join the #ReadForRefuge read-along. Above all, they want people who love without judgment.
Assistance League of Bend is an all-volunteer nonprofit with no paid staff, bringing comfort and hope to children and adults facing hardship across Deschutes County, with every dollar raised staying local. Its signature Operation School Bell program outfits nearly 2,000 local students each year with new school clothes, shoes, and coats, alongside emergency clothing for children entering foster care, prom attire through Cinderella's Closet, handmade comfort items for people in cancer treatment, and care and holiday gifts for seniors in long-term care.
An all-volunteer organization with no paid staff. Volunteers run programs like Operation School Bell (new clothes for kids), Cinderella's Closet (formalwear), knitted comfort items for cancer patients, and Secret Santa gifts and hygiene deliveries for seniors in care facilities.
Volunteers in Medicine Clinic of the Cascades
also known as VIM Cascades; VIM
Volunteers in Medicine Clinic of the Cascades (VIM Cascades) is Central Oregon's only free clinic and charitable pharmacy for low-income, uninsured working adults who earn too much for the Oregon Health Plan. With 200+ in-clinic volunteers and 300+ volunteer medical providers, it offers primary and specialty care, prescriptions, mental health care, and diabetes wellness, serving nearly 16,000 patients since 2004.
Medical professionals volunteer as providers, nurses, pharmacists, and specialists in the clinic or through pro-bono partnerships, and community members help in non-clinical roles that keep the clinic running. About 200 in-clinic volunteers work alongside staff, making it possible to serve patients who would otherwise go without care.
You haven't seen them all yet. There are more organizations below.