For more than 7 years Jocelyn Mijares has volunteered with Boca Helping Hands. Just this year, she has donated almost 500 hours of her time.
An active member of the Parent Teacher Association at all three of her children’s schools, Jocelyn was looking for a way to become more involved in her community in an impactful way. In 2016, she applied for membership with the Junior League of Boca Raton (JLBR,) hoping to meet a diverse group of women with a shared mission.
Jocelyn sprung into action as a new JLBR member. She became involved with their Done in a Day action committee and selected the Boca Helping Hands Backpacks Program to begin her volunteerism. Jocelyn felt connected with the work she was doing at BHH and looked for more opportunities to get involved.
When BHH’s Pantry Bag Program expanded to Boynton Beach in 2017, the location needed help sourcing volunteers to load cars in the drive-thru distribution. Jocelyn took this as a sign and was one of the first to sign up.
“As much as I enjoyed packing weekend meal boxes with the Junior League, I loved being able to interact with families one-on-one at the drive-thru distribution in Boynton,” Jocelyn said.
In March 2020, when much of the world shut down in-person operations, Jocelyn needed an excuse to get out of the house and on the front line. “I realized that BHH had another drive-thru distribution right next to my house in West Boca, and with grocery stores being an undesirable but necessary destination, more people needed help from BHH.” Jocelyn signed up for Saturday morning shifts in West Boca shortly after.
Jocelyn quickly became involved in the inner workings of BHH; her multifaceted knowledge of the different operations made her stand out to Senior Director of Operations Bill Harper and he quickly recruited her to assist with administrative tasks in the BHH offices.
Among her many other engagements with the JLBR, Jocelyn has dropped her Thursday afternoon weekend meal packing shift confidently knowing that other members would get the job done. These days, she can be found on Mondays in the BHH offices, Tuesdays at the Boynton Beach drive-thru distribution, and Saturdays in West Boca. BHH is lucky to call Jocelyn a faithful volunteer, and a member of our family.
