Mayor Keller Asks Volunteers to Log Hours to Help Bring In Federal Relief Funds

April 8, 2020

The “One Albuquerque” spirit is alive and well as residents throughout the city rise to the challenges of the coronavirus public health emergency. From decentralized mutual aid efforts to transforming yards of cloth into masks, many people are finding ways to help fill a need. The City of Albuquerque is now aiming to capture the magnitude of that impact.

Mayor Keller’s earlier public health emergency declaration allows the City of Albuquerque to request additional resources through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA can reimburse state and local governments’ qualifying volunteer activities at a rate of $25.43 per hour. This money can help the pandemic recovery effort, but only if the hours are logged by volunteers.

Mayor Tim Keller said, “All over Albuquerque, our residents are stepping up to assist our efforts to respond to and recover from the coronavirus pandemic with hours of volunteering from getting food to  seniors to supporting children learning from home and sewing masks for healthcare workers on the front line.” He added, “We have a chance to bring in federal dollars that recognize this community-wide effort—critical money that will speed our recovery—but we need your help logging those hours.”

Albuquerque maintains an innovative volunteer platform that allows any organization or individual volunteer to post their work, recruit others in the community to join their cause, and most importantly, log service hours contributed to our city.

The City of Albuquerque encourages all of the organizations and individuals who are stepping up to help address the public health emergency to post their opportunities and log their hours on the One Albuquerque Volunteers website: https://www.oneabqvolunteers.com/.

The volunteer platform is designed to be an asset for organizers and leaders, and goes beyond volunteer recruitment—it is a tool for volunteer management, scheduling, email, hour logging and hour verification. Volunteers can even choose to log their hours independently or champion new, citywide initiatives.

Some of the most pressing volunteer and hour logging needs include:

• Sewing masks for essential workers.
• Mutual aid efforts in the Albuquerque area.
• Virus screening support at the Emergency Operations Center and Westside Emergency Housing Center.

The City encourages all of those interested in volunteering to follow the latest social distancing recommendations from the New Mexico Department of Health at https://cv.nmhealth.org/. For information on City of Albuquerque services, programming and facilities, or for Coronavirus FAQs in multiple languages, visit www.cabq.gov.

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The Office of Civic Engagement is committed to enabling a whole-of community approach to make Albuquerque a safe, inclusive and innovative city that works for all.