Volunteers Swarm to Help Seattle-Area Nonprofits

April Kelly, program manager at Taproot’s Seattle office, says the number of applications to her office climbed 68 percent in January to 129 people, compared with the same month in 2008. In January, San Francisco-based Taproot saw a 71 percent increase in volunteers nationwide, to more than 1,000.

Increasingly, local volunteers are coming from the ranks of the unemployed. “The last orientation I had, about 75 percent of the room said that they had been laid off,” Kelly said.