We come together, serving our community where we raise our families, helping those who are in need, growing our passion for a better world with ‘love’ in heart, and connecting with others who share the same value.

President’s Volunteer Service Award (PVSA)

OCC has been approved as an official Certifying Organization for The President’s Volunteer Service Award. We encourage community members, especially youth, to get involved in all the volunteer activities by taking advantage of this platform.

To be qualified as a volunteer for PVSA awards under OCC, you will have to (1) meet the requirements by PVSA AND (2) fill out and sign OCC’s PVSA Application Information Form.

You will be responsible for recording hours after each volunteer activity. Also please keep the volunteer hour logs for future verification. OCC provides you an hour log sheet for your convenience.

What counts as volunteer hours? We recommend a few online articles (No.1, No.2, No.3) for your reference. Even though we request supervisor’s signature and possible hour log verification, it is still up to the volunteers themselves to report hours with the highest level of integrity.

Hours are measured over a 12-month period (Oct 27 through Oct 26) and awards are designated based on cumulative hours. The awards are offered in multiple levels and are designed to recognize each milestone of your service achievement. Levels include bronze, silver, gold and the highest honor, the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for those who contribute more than 4,000 hours of service in their lifetime.

Once the documentation is received via email (volunteer@pdxchinese.org) by announced deadline, OCC will verify all records and confirm that the candidate has completed the number of service hours in good standing as required to earn a President’s Volunteer Service Award.

Our volunteers who assist with certifying students’ hours have prepared a detailed PVSA Application Guide, Please review it carefully; it is available in both English and Chinese.

Many students and parents inquire about volunteer opportunities. We encourage you to explore what past recipients have accomplished by clicking on their names here: Current and past PVSA honorees

How We Organize Volunteer Activities?

We use WeChat groups. Each group can have up to 500 people. We post regularly in 30 such groups, half of which are monitored by OCC. Unfortunately, all conversations in those groups are in (simplified) Chinese.

For volunteer activities, the main place to organize is 《OCC Active 义工群》. Because it is always full, we also post the info in the other two WeChat groups: 《OCC华人社区公益一群》 and 《OCC华人社区公益二群》，the latter has not yet reached the 500 people limit.

We also have a few special WeChat groups for specific volunteer activities, including two active groups:《兰苏园之友群》和《OCC庇护所晚餐群》。

More Resources

20+ Kid-Friendly Volunteer Opportunities in Portland
More Volunteering Opportunities Prepared by Multnomah County Library
HandsOn Greater Portland
The Complete List of Community Service Scholarships
How People Can Help Charities Remotely