Register Online Now to Volunteer for the Marshall University Language Bank!

What is the Language Bank?

As the Huntington/Charleston/Tri-State region welcomes increasing numbers of immigrants to our community, the need for a free and accessible language interpretation and translation resource becomes especially important for government and non-profit agencies. Responding to this need, Marshall University’s Center for International Programs has established the Marshall University Language Bank, a group of volunteers who are on-call to help translate or interpret for local government agencies and non-profit organizations serving residents with limited English proficiency.

Who can benefit?

Agencies who wish to take advantage of this service must be a non-profit or public agency registered with the Marshall University Language Bank. Clients for the Language Bank may include school districts, social service organizations, county health departments, homeless shelters, women’s shelters, and food banks.

What if I'm a business or "for profit" that wants to use the Language Bank services?

The Language Bank will NOT provide free assistance for all cases. Translation or interpretation services for legal, medical and business transactions may be offered for a fee to be negotiated between the client and Marshall University. Profits from these services and donations from the community will be used to support the volunteer services offered by the Language Bank.

What do volunteers do?

The Language Bank provides free language assistance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Situations for volunteering might include, helping the manager at the domestic violence shelter with a client who just turned up at the shelter in the middle of the night; helping a school counselor who needs to let a parent know that their child is ill and needs to go home, helping an agencies to educate the different immigrant communities about disaster preparedness or medical emergencies in their own language.