Organizations Needing General Volunteers and Interpreters
Where: Baltimore
Asylee Women Enterprise helps women seeking asylum to rebuild their lives and their spirits. Asylee Women Enterprise (AWE) provides transitional housing, companionship and community to asylum seekers by offering a safe and nurturing home, opportunities to connect within the larger community and each other. Volunteers can find opportunities here.
Where: Maryland (especially Baltimore, Hyattsville)
CASA’s mission is to create a more just society by building power and improving the quality of life in low-income immigrant communities. Its vision is a future with diverse and thriving communities living free from discrimination and fear, working together with mutual respect to achieve full human rights for all.
Esperanza Center (Catholic Charities)
Where: Baltimore
The Esperanza Center is a comprehensive immigrant resource center that offers hope and essential services to people who are new to the United States. Immigrants from all over the world have received important resources and compassionate guidance at the Esperanza Center since 1963. Dedicated staff and volunteers provide services and referrals, ESL education, healthcare, and low-cost immigration legal services to thousands of immigrants each year.
Chesapeake Multicultural Resource Center
Where: Eastern Shore (Easton, MD)
By coordinating services and informational programs, The Chesapeake Multicultural Resource Center (ChesMRC) empowers people from different cultures to become successful and engaged members of our community. Through education, we strive to breakdown cultural barriers that arise from differences in language, appearance or ethnic traditions.
Where: Maryland (all areas)
CIVIC is a network of over 40 immigration detention visitation programs, a national detention hotline, and a developing pen-pal program! We welcome those who would like to join our team, as there are many opportunities to plug in!
Foreign Born Information and Referral Network
Where: Howard County
FIRN is a nonprofit organization in Howard County, Maryland that empowers immigrants, refugees, asylees and other foreign-born individuals by helping them to access community resources and opportunities. FIRN provides immigration counseling and citizenship classes, interpreting & translation services, English tutoring, information and referrals and a variety of workshops.
KIND (Kids in Need of Defense)
Where: Maryland (all)
KIND continues to build a robust national network of pro bono attorneys who have been trained by KIND and who have represented unaccompanied children in their search for safety, including children who have been persecuted in their home countries; trafficked to the U.S., and abused, abandoned or neglected; these are among the many protection needs of these uniquely vulnerable children.
Where: Harford Country (Bel Air)
LASOS, Inc (Linking All So Others Succeed), in Harford County, Maryland, is a non-profit organization that provides adult literacy classes in civics, financial literacy, technology and citizenship, at risk youth mentoring and family literacy programs for non-native English speaking residents of Harford County. We also provide on-site translation as well as a network of service providers that assist in the integration process.
Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland
Where: Maryland (all areas)
Where: Baltimore
The World Relief Baltimore Immigration Legal Clinic (“The Clinic”) advises and represents immigrants and their family members in immigration matters such as: applying for permanent residence and work permits, petitioning for family members to remain or reunite with them in the U.S., and applying for naturalization. We provide assistance to immigrants or their family members who reside within the state of Maryland, or who have cases with the Immigration Court in Maryland.
Organizations Needing Professional Volunteers (Law, Mental Health)
Inter-Cultural Counseling Connection
Where: All over Maryland
Help Needed: Mental Health Professionals and Graduate Students
The Intercultural Counseling Connection is a referral network of mental health professionals committed to providing culturally responsive counseling and therapeutic services for refugees in the greater Baltimore area. Counseling services through the Connection network are provided for free (pro bono) or under reimbursement through Medical Assistance (Medicaid). There is no charge to the client.
CATA-Farmworkers Support Committee
Where: Eastern Shore, especially Salisbury
Help Needed: Legal support, especially in employment law
CATA is a non-profit, migrant farmworker organization that is governed by and comprised of farmworkers who are actively engaged in the struggle for better working and living conditions. CATA’s mission is to empower and educate farmworkers through leadership development and capacity building so that they are able to make informed decisions regarding the best course of action for their interests. CATA has advanced based on the belief that only through organizing and collective action can they achieve justice and fullness of life. CATA’s programs are based on the Popular Education Methodology, which actively involve farmworkers in the process of social change. This means that the analysis and proposed actions come directly from the farmworkers. Also inherent in CATA’s mission is the importance of analyzing the farmworker reality in terms of the food system. In doing so, projects and campaigns are undertaken with the goal of achieving meaningful and lasting improvements rather than mere reforms to a legal and economic system that is structurally biased against them.
KIND (Kids in Need of Defense)
Where: Maryland (all)
Help Needed: Lawyers, students to help support legal work
KIND continues to build a robust national network of pro bono attorneys who have been trained by KIND and who have represented unaccompanied children in their search for safety, including children who have been persecuted in their home countries; trafficked to the U.S., and abused, abandoned or neglected; these are among the many protection needs of these uniquely vulnerable children.
Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service
MVLS is a private, non-profit legal services provider established in 1981 to help meet the need for civil legal services in Maryland. The MVLS mission is to provide quality civil legal assistance to Marylanders with limited income at low or no cost.
The MVLS pro bono program serves Marylanders in Central Maryland, the Lower Shore, and Western Maryland. The program has focused on pro bono assistance–matching one client and one volunteer attorney. MVLS’s panel of over 1,000 volunteers help clients with custody disputes, tax issues, child and adult guardianship, landlord/tenant conflicts, foreclosure defense, consumer cases and a broad range of other civil legal problems.
Where: Eastern Shore (Talbot, Kent, Dorchester, Queen Anne, Caroline)
Help Needed: Attorneys in multiple areas of law.
Mid-Shore Pro Bono connects low income individuals and families who need civil legal services with volunteer attorneys and community resources.
Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland
Where: Maryland (all areas)
Help Needed: Attorneys in Multiple Areas of Law
The Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland addresses the inequality of access to the legal system by connecting volunteer lawyers to economically disadvantaged individuals, non-profit legal services providers, and communities for free legal counsel and representation. We recruit, train, mentor and refer hundreds of volunteers to programs offering meaningful opportunities to prevent abuse, reunite families, avoid tax sale and home foreclosure, defend against consumer fraud, escape violence, obtain necessary disability and veterans’ benefits, and keep kids in school. Through our project incubation efforts, we also provide direct, service-based learning opportunities to positively impact at-risk individuals and neighborhoods, ultimately affecting close to 1,200 Marylanders annually through community education, brief legal advice clinics, direct case representation, and information and referral services. PBRC facilitates systemic change by cultivating a strong pro bono culture and recommending and implementing statewide policies on pro bono practice.
Where: Baltimore
The World Relief Baltimore Immigration Legal Clinic (“The Clinic”) advises and represents immigrants and their family members in immigration matters such as: applying for permanent residence and work permits, petitioning for family members to remain or reunite with them in the U.S., and applying for naturalization. We provide assistance to immigrants or their family members who reside within the state of Maryland, or who have cases with the Immigration Court in Maryland.
Other Resources in the Community Who Might Welcome Volunteers
The InterCultural Counseling Connection has assembled a thorough list of organizations that support immigrants and refugees in Maryland. These organizations can surely use financial support, and many are likely to embrace volunteers as well. Peruse these organizations here.