Who Can Volunteer
Volunteer Opportunities for Kids (Ages 3–9)
Matching organizations, in a different order on every visit
Think Wild is Central and Eastern Oregon's only public wildlife hospital and conservation center, located on four acres on Bend's east side. Its veterinary staff and volunteers rescue, treat, and release hundreds of injured and orphaned native animals each year, from hummingbirds and flying squirrels to bald eagles and bobcats. Think Wild also runs a wildlife hotline, humane wildlife conflict help, Beaver Works Oregon habitat restoration, and education programs and camps for youth and the community. Found injured or orphaned wildlife? Call the hotline at 541-241-8680 (8am–6pm daily).
Volunteers help in the wildlife hospital with animal care, diet prep, and enclosure upkeep; rescue and transport injured wildlife; care for ambassador animals; support education programs, camps, and community events; and assist with humane wildlife conflict projects. Youth and family volunteering is available for kids and teens, and families and groups can join habitat restoration through Beaver Works Oregon. Training is provided.
Sparrow Clubs USA empowers kids to help kids in medical need through compassion, kindness, and sponsored community service. A local school adopts a child facing a medical crisis as its Sparrow, a business sponsor pledges funds, and students earn those funds for the family by completing community service hours in the child's name. Based in Bend, it runs clubs across Central Oregon and beyond.
Students volunteer through their school's Sparrow Club, completing community service projects in their Sparrow's name; every service hour earns sponsor money for the child's family, and the program is free to schools. Teachers and schools can start a club, and businesses can sponsor a Sparrow project or support fundraisers like Dancing with the Central Oregon Stars.
All-volunteer Central Oregon group that has sent care packages to local service members deployed overseas or stationed at hardship posts since 2003. Volunteers pack boxes monthly at the Bend VFW post, filling them with donated snacks, hygiene items, cards, and letters so troops know their hometown is thinking of them. Families can sign up a service member with ties to Central Oregon.
Volunteers gather once a month to pack and address care packages for Central Oregon service members deployed or stationed far from home. Anyone can write cards and notes to include, and groups and businesses can run drives for snacks, hygiene items, and other comforts from home.
The Redmond Food Project keeps St. Vincent de Paul of Redmond's food pantry stocked year-round through a simple neighbor-to-neighbor model. Launched in 2020 and patterned on the Bend Food Project, it enlists Redmond households as long-term food donors who fill a reusable green bag every two months, collected by volunteer Neighborhood Coordinators, turning small, regular gifts into thousands of pounds of food and meals for local families.
Neighborhood Coordinators are the heart of the project: they recruit neighbors as food donors, hand out reusable green bags, and on the second Saturday of every other month collect the full bags and leave empty ones, then deliver the food to the pantry. Food Donors simply fill a green bag with a few extra nonperishables over two months. Families often collect together, and kids love helping.
Crook County Green Bags keeps local food pantries stocked by turning neighbors into regular food donors. Launched in 2024 and modeled on the Bend and Redmond food projects, it has coordinators in 21 Prineville-area neighborhoods who collect green bags of nonperishable food every other month; in its first year it gathered more than 7.5 tons, about 12,500 meals, for Redemption House Ministries, St. Vincent de Paul, DHS child welfare visitation rooms, and Pioneer High School.
Neighborhood coordinators recruit neighbors as food donors, collect the green bags every other month, and bring them to a central drop-off, where volunteers sort and distribute the food. Donors simply fill a green bag with nonperishables (no glass, and easy-open items are especially helpful) and set it out on collection day. You give what you can, when you can.
A statewide Oregon environmental nonprofit mobilizing volunteers for litter cleanups, habitat restoration, and waterway care, including annual events in Central Oregon.
Volunteers join litter cleanups, habitat restoration, and invasive plant removal at events statewide, including annual Central Oregon projects like the Upper Deschutes River cleanup and Sisters Community Cleanup Day. Groups and self-led projects are also supported.
Founded in 1961, the Humane Society of Central Oregon runs Bend's animal shelter, caring for thousands of abandoned, neglected, and stray companion animals each year and never turning an animal away. Beyond adoptions, HSCO reunites lost pets with their families, offers low-cost spay/neuter and wellness care, runs the HOPE Pet Food Bank to help keep pets in their homes, and brings humane education to schools and community events. Its thrift store helps fund the work.
Volunteers work directly with shelter animals and visitors — grooming and enriching cats through the Feline Friends program, walking and socializing adoptable dogs as Canine Companions, greeting shelter visitors, assisting adoption counselors both on-site and at off-site adoption events, and providing clerical support. Volunteers can start as young as 9 with a guardian.
The Upper Deschutes Watershed Council brings people together to protect and restore the rivers and streams of the Upper Deschutes basin, leading habitat restoration and water quality monitoring, and connecting students and the community to the river through education programs and the annual Deschutes River Cleanup.
Volunteer opportunities include the annual Deschutes River Cleanup, stream sampling and monitoring days, and seasonal education internships supporting youth watershed programs, open to volunteers of all ages.
Tumalo Lavender
also known as Tumalo Lavender Farm
Tumalo Lavender is a working lavender farm in Tumalo, northwest of Bend, growing lavender on-site and making bath, body, culinary, and home products sold at its farm store and online. The farm welcomes visitors for U-cut lavender, workshops, yoga, and seasonal events, and each September invites the community to its volunteer harvest day.
At the annual Volunteer Harvest Day in September, family and friends drop in anytime during the day to help cut lavender and celebrate the end of the season on the farm. It's a relaxed, family-friendly way to spend a few hours outside, with RSVPs through the farm's event calendar.
The Environmental Center works to embed sustainability into daily life in Central Oregon through environmental education, community programs, and policy advocacy. From its home in downtown Bend, it runs a learning garden, youth environmental education, and community sustainability initiatives, and serves as a regional hub connecting individuals and environmental organizations.
Volunteer opportunities include board and committee service, hands-on help in the learning garden, and support for community programs and events, most of which are family-friendly and open to all ages.
Beaver Works Oregon
also known as Think Wild Beaver Works
Beaver Works Oregon is Think Wild's habitat restoration program, working with land managers and conservation partners across Central and Eastern Oregon to bring back healthy, beaver-supported streams and wetlands. Staff and volunteers build beaver dam analogs, hand-built structures that slow water where beavers are absent, plant native willows and cottonwoods, survey waterways for beaver activity, and help people and beavers share the landscape, making watersheds more resilient to drought and wildfire.
Volunteers build and maintain beaver dam analogs, plant native willows and cottonwoods along streams, harvest willow for propagation, and survey waterways for signs of beaver activity to support long-term research. Projects range from physically demanding backcountry field days to beginner- and family-friendly outings. No experience needed; training, tools, and guidance are provided.
The Salvation Army Bend Corps serves thousands of Central Oregonians each year through a client-choice food pantry, emergency assistance with rent and utilities, holiday food and gifts through the Red Kettle and Angel Tree campaigns, youth after-school programs, and visits to seniors, as part of its faith-based mission to meet human needs without discrimination.
The Bend Corps has roles for almost every age: helping in the client-choice food pantry, visiting residents of assisted living centers, assembling gifts for veterans and people experiencing homelessness, and supporting youth programs. Each holiday season, volunteers ring bells at Red Kettles outside stores in Bend, Redmond, and La Pine; families, groups, and businesses can sign up for shifts.
You haven't seen them all yet. There are more organizations below.