Dear Tracy,

What do reading books, interpreting credit reports, pulling weeds, organizing bedding, teaching cooking and building a pergola have in common?

They are all things volunteers did for us last year!

April is Volunteer Appreciation month and boy o’ boy do we have some AMAZING volunteers that we treasure.

Our volunteers bring meaningful community to life through the time they spend teaching, decorating apartments, sharing skills and so much more. When we say we couldn’t do our work without them, we really, really mean it.

In 2023, we had 788 volunteers give 4,772 hours of their time and talent to supporting our families. Imagine if 2.25 full-time employees worked (without a vacation!) for an entire year. That’s how much work our volunteers do! And that combined time represents a value of $151.750.

The true value they bring is priceless. Every volunteer brings with them a heart and compassion that infuses every corner of our mission with caring. Every family we serve knows they have a special place in a community that deeply believes in them.

The impact of that care lasts a lifetime. One alumni who was at Saranam as a child shared this with us, after several years of stability following her family's successful exit:

"I want to [thank] the staff and teachers and volunteers and the other families we were with and everyone else involved for their support, kindness, encouragement, warmth, guidance, gifts, lessons, patience, and for their love... Though there were many changes and challenges, my favorite memories are at Saranam."

We know that the impact is mutual. One of our core values is transformation and we believe that our work together changes both our families and our community. A volunteer decorator recently shared:

"I feel Saranam is such a forward-thinking program & after speaking with several woman that expressed how the program changed their lives, I feel honored to have contributed a very small part in helping to give a family hope for a better future. "- Saranam volunteer

If you have every wanted to get involved, now is a great time. Check out our opportunities on our website and see how you can make a difference.

Thank you, thank you to our volunteers for all you do to bring us your light and love!

Thank you to some special community partners!

Team work makes the dream work! We have had some amazing community partners pitch in recently to help us support our families.

Thank you to Faith Lutheran Church for donating hundreds of toiletries and paper goods as a part of their church’s Lenten Project. We had two HUGE carloads of items that will ensure our families have all they need to keep their home running smoothly.

Covenant United Methodist Church worked their magic again with some super fun Easter baskets for our kids. They made sure to handpick items for every child to make each basket special. Thank you for making the holidays so meaningful!

Huge high five to Hope Christian Middle School for an amazing work-a-thon week. It took 62 people over 180 hours, but they were INSTRUMENTAL in preparing our decorator store and gardens. We truly could not have done it without them and we are so thankful for the citizenship and generosity they showed.

Finally, tons of thanks to student volunteers from Albuquerque Academy! They cleaned tables and pulled a jungle of weeds in our Weil Family Center, making sure it was a welcoming place for families to build relationships together.

Group Opportunities



We have some special group opportunities that only come around once in a blue moon. They are so fun that people like to keep doing them year after year!

These special jobs allow us to extend the same community love to our new families on the Westside that our Eastside families have always enjoyed.

We need help providing:

• Christmas stockings
• Easter Baskets (starting 2025)
• Mother’s Day lunch or gift baskets (starting in 2025)

If you have a group of friends, a book club, a church group- whatever- this is a fun way to get together and give back. Sign up in our volunteer newsletter or learn more by emailing Sunny Holmes at sholmes@saranamabq.org

Lend a Hand!

From preparations of the ADC Family Campus to tutoring, we need lots of help supporting our families.

Check out our volunteer newsletter for the latest list of needs with dates and times. Thank you for lending a hand to make our mission possible!