A groundswell of community support through local volunteers has helped Clallam County meet needs across the region during the COVID-19 pandemic over the past four months.
Now, county officials are looking to give those helpers a break.
Undersheriff Ron Cameron of the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office has put out a call for volunteers. He is seeking to fill roles that range from daily to weekly services, from answering phones to helping field testing sites and assisting at food drives.
Some of these duties, Cameron said, have included incident management in the Emergency Operations Center, contact tracing with Health and Human Services, county-wide deliveries of supplies to hospitals and other facilities, quarantine support and more.
“After 25 weeks or so, this remarkable corps of community members have stepped up and assisted us in any way they could to help people throughout our county, and some show up almost every day,” Cameron said.
“We truly want to give folks a break and are reaching out to everyone to see if you have some time to volunteer.”
Volunteer efforts don’t have to be daily, Cameron noted; food drives in the Port Angeles area are about two hours on a Saturday, and other opportunities are assisting on the phone.
“If you have some time to give during the day and weekends, give us a shout — we really need you to help us back-fill some of our positions to maintain the excellent response we have been doing all this time,” Cameron said.
For more information or to volunteer, contact Cameron at rcameron@co. clallam.wa.us or Anne Chastain at achastain@co.clallam.wa.us.
“We will only take the time you want to give,” Cameron said. “After a while, you may find that you want to stick around and become a full-time sheriff’s volunteer and join our Incident Management Team, communications team, SAR (search and rescue) or one of our other exciting and important programs; it can be a lot of fun.”
