Email automations based on Opportunity start date

Since Opportunities disappear from the Org home page after a volunteer signs up for the Opportunity, some of our volunteers have had a hard time navigating back to the Opportunity page to sign up for additional shifts. They also do not like the amount of pages they have to click through to sign up for a shift. To avoid this issue, we have chosen not to use shifts and are creating an Opportunity for each weekly volunteering event. However, we would love to be able to send an automated reminder email before the volunteering event starts. This is currently an option at the Shift level, but not the Opportunity level, meaning we have to manually send an email reminder since we are not using Shifts. I would like to see an option added to create an email automation based on the Opportunity start date. It would also be helpful for email templates to include additional Opportunity-based personalization options, such as the Start Date, Schedule Style, and Time Commitment.