AMHERST — The Amherst Survival Center will honor the 200 volunteers who dedicate their time to the center at the agency’s first autumn volunteer acknowledgment dinner Wednesday.
The center already has acknowledgment activities in April, but Executive Director Mindy Domb said the center is adding this annual event in the fall so that volunteers who do not stay until spring have a formal opportunity to feel the center’s appreciation.
“They are incredibly generous … and are a huge part of how the community demonstrates that we are a caring community,” she said.
The evening of dinner, music and awards will be held at the center. Seven individuals will receive the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes people who gave over 4,000 hours of service to the Amherst Survival Center during their life. Another seven volunteers will be given the silver-level Presidential Volunteer Service Award for contributing more than 250 hours of service in one year.
Domb said gratitude is expressed daily to volunteers, whether it be from the center’s staff or program participants, but acknowledgment activities are held as a more official means of showing appreciation.
The Amherst Survival Center will team up with the Franklin Hampshire Career Center to sponsor a jobs fair on Wednesday from 1 to 2:30 p.m.
The fair will be held in the center’s community dining room at 138 Sunderland Road, and all attendees’ name will be entered into a raffle to win a supermarket gift certificate.
Local employers in attendance will include Amherst College, Big Y, Elite Logistics, Harmon Personnel Services, Premiere Staffing, Stop & Shop, UMass Auxiliary Services, United Parcel Service, Walmart, Whole Foods, and Yankee Candle.
The jobs fair is part of the Amherst Survival Center’s job search support program, which sponsors two annual jobs fairs. The program also provides weekly individualized one-on-one job search support on Thursdays from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.