Volunteers of America Western Washington

Since 1898, Volunteers of America Western Washington has provided essential human services to families and communities that need them most. VOAWW impacts 315,000 people every year by providing food, shelter, preschool, crisis and suicide prevention hotlines and chat, dispute resolution and mediation, community resource centers, disability services and programs for older adults. 

VOAWW is dedicated to finding new ways of alleviating poverty and setting individuals and families on the path to stability and self-sufficiency. Our greatest strength is our ability to rapidly scale and create programs to address emerging needs. When the government of Afghanistan fell in 2021, we mobilized, in partnership with government, community and faith leaders, to create a Refugee Resettlement Program that will help 3,000 refugees from Afghanistan (and now Ukraine) obtain food, shelter, housing, healthcare, employment, legal representation and translation services as they arrive in the PNW. Seeing a gap in help for our Native affiliated neighbors, we created the Washington State Indian Tribal HUB and the Native and Strong Lifeline, two resources for crisis, mental health and substance use help for members of tribes across the state, again in coordination with the state and tribal governments. In the past few years, VOAWW has expanded its services and innovated to double our distribution of food (from 4 million to 8 million pounds annually), add cold weather shelter and free shower programs in North and East County, create mobile crisis responders, and take stewardship of community centers and a senior center to reinvent them and prevent them from closing.

VOAWW is a catalyst for innovation in human services and an expert in bringing the community together to collaborate on our greatest challenges.