Pebble Tossers: Matching Young Atlanta Volunteers With Service Project Opportunities

Atlanta moms Jeni Stephens and Jen Guynn quickly became friends after meeting through their children's school. Both women shared a passion for volunteerism and community involvement and went in search of age-appropriate volunteer projects for their young families. The process was time-consuming and left them frustrated and disappointed; finding meaningful service projects for kids turned out to be more challenging than they expected. So they came up with the idea for an online resource that would make it more fun and easier for busy families to make a difference in their community.

In October 2009, after a year of research, Stephens and Guynn launched Pebble Tossers, a non-profit youth service organization and family volunteering resource for kids, teens, and families in Metro Atlanta. The name denotes the far-reaching impact of a tiny pebble, which, when tossed into the water, creates many ripples. Similarly, one child and one act of service can generate far-reaching ripples of giving that span their family, community, and lifetime.

Pebble Tossers' mission is to ignite a passion for volunteerism in kids that develops their character and impacts the world. Pebble Tossers helps children who want to help by matching their interests and abilities with the needs of their community. There are now more than 200 fun, age-appropriate volunteer projects with local, pre-screened organizations, covering 12 major cause areas including animals, the arts, the elderly, the environment, education and literacy, families in need, homelessness, hunger, global awareness, philanthropy, sick and special needs children, and US troops and veterans.

Members are notified of new, nearby service project opportunities each month. They can also find volunteer projects themselves by browsing the Pebble Tossers website.

Named “Best Volunteer Matcher” by Malachi's Storehouse, Pebble Tossers currently has 13,000 members from all across Metro Atlanta and counting. In 2013, members served more than 110 local non-profit organizations in need of assistance.