Volunteer Spotlight: Maria Zuniga
Maria Zuniga went through Helpmate’s volunteer training in September 2007 which was the first advocate training we held in our new emergency shelter. She immediately began helping with childcare at our Monday night support group and started training to become a hotline advocate as well.
Maria is bilingual and speaks Spanish fluently so she was eager to help victims of domestic violence who cannot speak English. She decided to focus specifically on assisting Latina victims who call the hotline and began taking three night shifts a week. She is still taking three night shifts a week to this very day! Maria provides back up for our monolingual staff and volunteers so when a Spanish-speaker calls the hotline during one of her shifts, she assists the caller by offering support and information. If a woman needs to come into our emergency shelter, Maria will work with our staff to coordinate getting the client into the shelter as soon as possible.
Maria currently donates between 40-50 hours a month to assist our Spanish-speaking hotline callers. We are very grateful to Maria for her years of support and her willingness to assist Spanish-speaking victims of domestic violence!
