the work

During your time with us, you will help youth on their business job. The activities vary, but may include organizing shelves, picking orders, sorting donations, and more. You may work as a big group or be divided up into smaller teams for different tasks. Your team will see that they have accomplished a lot to help our youth hit their goals!

what to expect

Group volutneer events happen at set times that align with our youth shifts and business needs. Depending on location and group size, they are usually mid morning or early afternoon and last 2 hours. A typical volunteer event will include:

  • Welcome and Sign In

  • Youth-Led Tour

  • Icebreaker Activity

  • Get Your Hands Dirty!

  • Check Out

An individual donning a trendy green shirt, confidently posing amidst a colorful array of books

want more?

Want to spend more than 2 hours with us? Ask our volunteer coordinator about renting a room for a team meeting, or booking a pizza party to celebrate your hard work. And don't forget to save some time to check out our bookstore!

Email our Volunteer Coordinator

group opportunity FAQ's

How big can my group be?

We can accomodate a group of up to 8 (at our Waltham site) or up to 15 (at our Boston site) in a typical slot. If your group is bigger, please contact us to discuss!

What will we be doing?

You will help our youth hit goals in their business! The activities vary day-by-day, and while our Volunteer Coordinator may be able to give you an idea of what to expect upon scheduling it could be subject to change. Typcial activities include sorting book or clothing donations, packing up boxes of donated media, organizing and cleaning shelves in the bookstore, picking orders in our online inventory, and more!

Can we come in the evening or pick our own time?

Group volunteer slots are set by More Than Words based on the needs of our business and schedule of youth shifts. While we may be able to accomodate a time adjustment it isn't gaurenteed, and our capacity to support evening events is very limited.

We want to do group mentoring/coaching with youth, can you set that up?

Our group volunteer slots are all in our youth-run business where we have seen groups be most effective in supporting our mission and be most empowering for our youth. Building trusting coaching relationships with young people (or anyone!) takes time, and so that work is done by our full-time staff and long-term individual volunteers.

Can kids volunteer in my group?

We love kids, small and big! But our warehouse environment is not a safe space for children so for the safety of our youth, staff and interested volunteer parties, we have to place limits on children volunteering. MTW cannot host groups from K-12 schools but teens 15 and over may join an all adult group with a caregiver present.

Can we bring books to donate also?

Yes! Thank you!