Overview

At Hands4Hope - Youth Making A Difference, our mission is to inspire and empower youth in leadership and service. We do this by giving youth a platform to make their voices heard on issues affecting our community and provide them the opportunity to take action in their own way. Hands4Hope enables youth to make a difference in their communities by offering meaningful community service projects combined with instruction and reflection, on-campus clubs at 13 middle and high schools from Folsom to Placerville, after school project and service committees, and diverse leadership opportunities. Youth are able to decide their own level of involvement. Hands4Hope youth participants range from Kindergarten through 12th grade; most after school committee opportunities are for middle and high school age youth. Adult volunteers are needed as well to supervise community engagement activities and offer mentorship to committee members. The focus area is within El Dorado and Sacramento Counties. Since the nonprofit organization’s founding in 2008, our innovative and unique approach to youth development through service learning has resulted in Hands4Hope youth: collecting 56,585 pounds of food for the hungry in our community preparing and serving 60,771 meals to the homeless and those food deprived collecting and distributing 70,869 articles of clothing and blankets, 85,362 school supplies, 16,500 pounds of toiletries raising $348,000 for local outreach projects close to their hearts including 613 youth in leadership roles/camps engaging 9,400 youth in 128,000 service hours. These numbers are impressive, but we have learned that with Hands4Hope,the process is more important than the product. As youth participate in Hands4Hope’s service learning opportunities, youth gain skills in project management, collaboration, communication, budgeting, and much more that they will carry with them forever.