🔦Volunteer Spotlight: January 2022

This month’s volunteer spotlight is on Hotline Volunteer Emily Woodworth. Since becoming a volunteer in in November of 2020, Emily has volunteered more than 250 hours on SARA’s 24/7 hotline. We love working with Emily because she an amazing communicator, active listener, and creative problem solver. After graduating from UVA in 2021, Emily moved to Boston work at Massachusetts General Hospital as a Research Coordinator. Thanks for all you do, Emily!

Emily says, “I like working at SARA because I feel like I can have a direct impact on survivors. Until I started working as a hotline volunteer, I don’t think I fully understood the power of listening. When survivors end our calls by saying something along the lines of, ‘this was really helpful, thank you’ or ‘you’re the first person I’ve told’ I feel like I’ve really made a difference for them - even if just by being a listening ear, validating, and providing resources. I also like being able to direct survivors to immediate resources within SARA or locally in the greater Charlottesville community. I think this helps bridge the gap for survivors that call and aren’t sure what options they have or what’s available to them.”