CMA's e-Newsletter
Connections: Where We Live, Work and Learn
- Letter from the President
- Guest Column: Days of Service Offer Strategic Advantages
- Tools for Family Volunteer Day: Children and Families as Volunteers
- Michigan Campus Compact
- Volunteer Centers of Michigan
- Michigan's Promise
- Mentor Michigan
- Great Story Highlight: RSVP Volunteers Go the Extra Mile
- Save-the-Dates
- Additional Resources
Issue #3 - July 17, 2006 - Connections
"Learning While Serving"
What a perfect time to be engaged in your community! Make the most of the summer sunlight and smell of fall leaves to be a part of Make A Difference Day on October 28 and Family Volunteer Day on November 18. Both days provide excellent opportunities for individuals and families to get involved with their neighbors and friends to make a lasting difference.
This newsletter celebrates the volunteer efforts of students around the state and provides resources for you to use in planning for special days of service. Enjoy the stories, take advantage of the tools, and join the movement toward making Michigan an even better place to live, work and learn.
Sincerely,
Kyle Caldwell
President and CEO
ConnectMichigan Alliance
Guest Column: Days of Service Offer Strategic Advantages
By Sara Grosvenor, Director, Media Development, Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network
Although days of service are typically associated with providing one-day volunteer projects, more and more organizations are beginning to realize that these days also provide strategic advantages. Service days can play an ongoing role in organizations, affording opportunities not only for project-oriented problem solving, but also for planning, teaching, researching, networking and increasing community awareness and volunteer participation.
The Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network sponsor two such days of service in partnership with major media outlets: Make A Difference Day, with USA WEEKEND Magazine, and Family Volunteer Day, with The Walt Disney Company. Both days can help organizations build capacity for effective volunteering by offering opportunities to mobilize new volunteers, increase media attention, secure funding and raise awareness of community needs.
Held annually on the fourth Saturday in October, Make A Difference Day is the nation’s largest day of service. In 2005, the day occurred just weeks after the devastating hurricane season and drew its largest number of volunteers ever. According to USA WEEKEND Magazine, more than 3 million volunteers helped an estimated 20 million people.
To recognize such extraordinary deeds performed by ordinary people, USA WEEKEND Magazine and the Foundation annually bestow 10 National Make A Difference Day Awards. At the close of Make A Difference Day, volunteers are invited to submit descriptions of their efforts to the magazine. A panel of judges, including longtime supporter Paul Newman, select the most compelling deeds.
USA WEEKEND Magazine profiles the Make A Difference Award honorees, and Mr. Newman donates $100,000 to 10 charities of their choosing. In addition to providing disaster relief, last year’s awardees washed cars to raise funds for military medical care, provided free dental care to the uninsured, baked bread for emergency service personnel, cleaned an urban neighborhood river and restocked a hurricane-ravaged school.
Marking the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Family Volunteer Day highlights the benefits of serving others as a family. The day provides opportunities to introduce family members to service and volunteerism and to encourage those who haven’t yet made a service commitment to volunteer as a family.
Family volunteering can be done by the whole family, by one parent with one child or teen, by siblings together or by the extended family. No matter the combination, volunteering as a family mobilizes new volunteers and instills in the next generation a lifelong commitment to volunteering. In addition, family members can connect better, not only with each other, but also with people of diverse cultures and economic situations. Young people and their parents alike can exercise positive qualities such as compassion, cooperation and respect.
Family Volunteer Day also showcases the commitment of the Points of Light Foundation and The Walt Disney Company to family volunteering. The Foundation has been the leading national advocate and practitioner of family volunteering for more than 10 years, providing both knowledge and opportunities for families. The Walt Disney Company maintains its decade-long relationship with the Points of Light Foundation and its commitment to the well being of children and to the engagement of family volunteers.
For details about planning a project for Make A Difference Day, please visit MakeADifferenceDay.com. For information about Family Volunteer Day, go to FamilyVolunteerDay.org, or email familyvolunteering@pointsoflight.org.
To learn more about local volunteer opportunities or to find your local Volunteer Center, call 1-800-VOLUNTEER or visit 1-800-VOLUNTEER.org.
Tools for Family Volunteer Day
Children and Families as Volunteers
By Susan J. Ellis, President, Energize, Inc.
Everyone knows that there are young volunteers, but the most common image that springs to mind at the thought of "young" is the teenage worker. The fact is that even the youngest of children, ages fourteen and lower, are active as volunteers. Sometimes we just don't see them.
Have you ever been to a fundraising carnival or holiday bazaar and not been aware of children helping out? They may be carrying boxes or taking tickets or putting your purchase into a bag, but they are there. Sure, they are brought along by parent volunteers as a natural extension of a family event, but once on site they actively participate.
Why not take advantage of this great situation and make the process more intentional? For example, welcome the children with nametags or buttons proclaiming "volunteer." Give them some choices as to where to be stationed during the day—do they have to help where their parents are working or can they spend time at another spot? Thank them when the event is over. All of this encourages children to feel good about volunteering. It builds up a personal tradition of service that, studies show, will continue throughout adult life. And it gives your organization even more extra hands!
Apart from such naturally-occurring occasional events, children can participate as volunteers in more formal, ongoing community service work, especially when they accompany other family members. You may be amazed at what parent-child teams can accomplish together. Children have accomplished impressive things as volunteers. Just a few real-life examples are:
· Recording oral histories from senior citizens in a community.
· Teaching introduction to computer classes for adults.
· Sharing personal experiences by writing guidebooks and making video programs for children who are in the hospital, undergoing special treatment for an illness, or coping with bereavement.
· Visiting in nursing homes.
· Helping people in wheelchairs on shopping mall trips.
· Welcoming new immigrant children to a community.
· Supporting their illiterate parents who are being tutored.
· Painting murals in public spaces.
· Planting flowers or vegetables in community gardens.
· Raking leaves or shoveling snow for the homebound elderly.
· Collecting canned goods for food distribution programs.
Children respond enthusiastically to recruitment campaigns. They loved to be needed and they know exactly when their labors have been a help to someone else. It does take time and work to coordinate young volunteers, but the rewards to the community and to the children themselves make the effort worthwhile.
Families Serving Together
For parents, as for all of us, there are simply too few hours in a day. With all that is already filling their schedules, they can't see how they can become a volunteer, even if they want to help solve community problems. So if an organization invites parents and children together to serve as volunteers, it’s an opportunity to spend that elusive but much-sought goal of "quality time" with each other. Here’s the recruitment pitch:
· You share a common bond while doing something worthwhile for others.
· You get to know your children in new ways, and vice versa.
· The process of demonstrating skills and learning new ones gives both age levels the chance to respect one another, work together towards the same goals—and have something to talk about all week!
· If you are already active as a volunteer somewhere, you can continue your participation with less guilt about the time you spend away from your family. Now you'll be with them—and the organizations you care about will receive even more volunteer help!
Family volunteering can be done by one parent and one child or teenager as a special "twosome" project. Or it can be several siblings together. It can involve both parents or one parent and an extended family member such as a grandparent or aunt/uncle. The mix-and-match possibilities are endless. The agency receiving benefits by having more helpers at one time because, if occasionally one family member cannot come one week, at least there are others to help fill in.
Choosing a Family Volunteer Project
Some families volunteer together naturally. Others may need to be introduced to the idea. Here is an approach that can be shared with faith communities, parent-teacher associations, and other places that already communicate with parents. By offering this project selection process, you can open the door to recruiting some of these families into your organization.
Call a family meeting and take time to consider this whole idea. Make sure everyone, no matter how young, participates in the discussion. You might want to proceed this way:
1. Make a list of all the volunteering each member of the family is doing now. Would the others like to help with any of these activities?
2. What causes interest you? Allow everyone to suggest a community problem of concern to him or her. If some of the ideas intrigue the whole family, start exploring what organizations in your community are already working on these. Use the Internet, the Yellow Pages, go to the library, visit your local Volunteer Center.
3. Also consider what types of work everyone wants to do. Make two lists: one for "Things We Know How to Do" and one for "Things We Would Like to Learn How to Do." Make sure something is listed for each member of the family. This is a great chance to acknowledge the talents of parents and children. These lists will also prove useful when you interview with an agency.
It may take several family meetings to complete these steps, but the conversations should be very interesting!
You will then be ready to offer your services as a family volunteer team. Call several organizations for appointments and screen your options. See whether the agency representatives are comfortable talking to your children as well as to the adults in the family. Does the agency have something meaningful for you to do as a group?
You may want to begin with a one-time activity. This will test the water to see how everyone likes volunteering together.
Once you have committed to a volunteer project, take it seriously. Show your children that volunteer work is important and meaningful. Talk about the activity during the week and plan ahead to do it, even when things get hectic. Some of the work may introduce your children to new ideas and possibly to people different from themselves. What a wonderful opportunity to pass along your values and ethics—but only if you take the time to talk about everyone's reactions. You, too, may be challenged by what you experience as a volunteer. Share those feelings with your children.
Note the advice from the perspective of the family and assess how your organization would measure up to the standards here. Have you defined meaningful work with age-appropriate tasks for family volunteers? Do you interview the whole family and not just the parents? What’s your orientation and training process?
All the basics of good volunteer management of individual adults apply equally to working with families volunteering together. And – if the projects are chosen creatively – it can be fun!
Susan J. Ellis is President of Energize, Inc., an international training, consulting, and publishing firm that specializes in volunteerism, based in Philadelphia and founded in 1977. Susan is the author or co-author of twelve books, including the Focus on Volunteering KopyKitä, from which this article was adapted. For more information on all aspects of volunteer program development and management, visit www.energizeinc.com.
Michigan Campus Compact: Starting Student Off Right at Olivet College
By Lynn Ward Gray, Associate Vice President for Diversity and Community Affairs,
Olivet College
Service Day is a popular and important feature of the fall and spring schedule at Olivet College. Established in 1998 as a yearly event, Service Day has grown to a bi-annual event the campus community looks forward to each semester. On the last Wednesday in September and the last Wednesday in March, students, faculty and staff put aside their normal routine to lend a helping hand to others and the environment in and around Olivet College. It is by far one of the most rewarding and satisfying experiences Olivetians will take part in during the year.
Each semester, Service Day engages over 500 people in activities that give us all a chance to learn by doing and to get to know each other in the process. Projects have included: Adopt-a-Highway, painting playground equipment at the local park, Jump Rope and Hoops for Heart to benefit the American Heart Association, cleaning up at Olivet Congregational Church, beautifying the local river in town, making prayer shawls for Eaton Community Hospice patients, the empty bowl project to benefit the food bank, a dunk tank and all-campus pop can drive benefiting hurricane relief, spending quality time with the elderly at various nursing homes, writing letters and sending care packages to soldiers overseas, volunteering at the Calhoun County Humane Society or raking leaves and yard work for elderly neighbors. Service projects are organized by individual students, athletic teams, Greek societies, individual educators, and student organizations. Some activities have connections to specific classes, while others are projects that need to be done for the good of the community.
If you are interested in learning more about Service Day or have a service project request that would take place in Olivet or a surrounding community within a 30 mile radius, please contact Lynn Ward Gray at (269) 749-7631 or via email at lgray@olivetcollege.edu.
Volunteer Centers of Michigan: Youth In Service
By Bonnie Hogoboom, Director, Bay County United Way & Volunteer Center
A first grade and forth grade classroom from Thornapple Kellogg Schools dedicated time and effort addressing the issue of hunger in the community. They wanted to serve their community and make a difference.
All throughout the year they raised funds by doing chores, and by the end of the year they had enough money to purchase a week worth of food for the distribution at the Fresh Food Initiative in Hastings. They worked very hard for the money they raised and were happy to purchase food from the Food Bank of South Central Michigan through the Barry County United Way & Volunteer Center. But, they wanted to do more; they wanted to serve.
On May 31, 2006, the two classrooms loaded a bus headed for Hastings, forty students in all. Initially, we were concerned about how we would keep 40 students busy, as well as the other 25 volunteers that consistently serve every Wednesday morning distributing a truck load of fresh food to 200 families. The great thing about having the school take the lead for a service project is they take the time to teach before they serve; hence, Learn & Serve.
The children were paired 1st to 4th grade buddies and when not busy serving, they were reading together, they knew what was expected of them and they lived up to everyone’s expectations. The pictures I’m sending speak the words for me, the kids were fantastic.
Not only for 1st graders and 4th graders, but for all students serving, spending the time up front to prepare, plan and instruct, sets them up for success. That is important if we want to create future volunteers. Our hardest job is conveying that important piece to agencies and organizations that are running on shoestring budgets; proactive planning will yield fewer volunteer related difficult situations.
These kids prove our potential possibilities...quite unlimited.
Michigan's Promise: Promise Daze and Service Learning
By Iva Brownell, Ionia Intermediate School District
For 5 years, the annual Promise Daze summer camp project for youth entering grades 5 through 8, has taken place for Ionia County. This camp is based around the "5 Promises" of America's Promise: Mentor, Teach, Nurture, Safe, and Serve (or give back to the community).
As an alumni of AmeriCorps / Promise Fellows, this project is dear to my heart. And as a current employee of the Ionia County Intermediate School District, I am able to continue this project with the blessings of Superintendent George Hubbard. Mr. Hubbard has helped get area school superintendents involved with publishing the project throughout their middle and elementary schools.
Freedom Acres School is designed for youth, Pre-K through age 26, with severe / multi handicaps and high school students that have a very difficult time fitting into the standard school setting. Freedom Acres has allowed us to host Promise Daze at their building every year since its inception in June 2002.
For the past four years we have looked for ways to help the campers in camp "serve" in the community. The first year of undertaking a Service Learning project at Promise Daze, we enhanced the walking portion of the Nature Trail behind Freedom Acres with mulch. The second year we got brave and built 10 birdhouses to place around the grounds at F. A., as well as a large flower box for the students at this school to enjoy. The third year was really our biggest undertaking for Service Learning projects - an outdoor volleyball court and a pathway we call "The Broken Arrow Trail," used for gross motor enhancement of the students. This year the campers measured, cut, and tied six infant quilts for the six ‘Baby Pantries’ in Ionia County, as well as planting flowers in six Hand Pump Planters for Freedom Acres School. The campers beam with pride when they finish a project.
To introduce any project to the campers we have a workshop we call "Sensitivity Training." We invite a speaker who works with special needs people or has a person who has a special need talk about the things they face daily. After the service project we conduct a reflection project with the campers. This year the reflection was directed by an AmeriCorps member, Michelle Boersma. She reminded them of the information shared by our Sensitivity Training Workshop presenter. She then followed up with having them use crayons in their mouths to reflect on the projects they had completed at camp this year. The engagement of the youth in the activites was powerful - I wish you could have heard the student reflections.
For more information on Ionia's Promise Daze, contact Iva Brownell at ikbrown@ionia-isd.k12.mi.us or 616-527-4900, ext. 1223.
For more information on Michigan's Promise, contact Mary Estrada, Program Coordinator, at mestrada@connectmichiganalliance.org or (517) 492-2440.
Mentor Michigan: Mentoring is a "Dunk"!
By Jeffrey Taylor
“I’ll dunk him this time!” a kid says to her friends as Mentor Michigan AmeriCorps Zachary Guy braces himself for what looks like a very fast and accurate throw. During this year’s Balloon Fest held in Howell, Guy volunteered to staff the dunk pool and “take a dive” to raise awareness and funds for the Youth Development Corporation.
"Zachary’s enthusiasm was contagious and all of the other volunteers followed suit and continued to bear the cold weather,” said Youth Development Corporation Program Coordinator Kimberly Herlick. “Even after temperatures dropped to the 50s and the wind picked up when the sun went down, his dedication never faltered.”
The Youth Development Corporations Spartan Friend’s Program serves youth 10-15 years old through one-on-one mentoring. “Our Spartan Friends Mentoring Program benefits greatly from the support that Zachary provides. He has helped expose us to cutting edge mentoring resources and information,” Herlick said. “As a Mentor Michigan AmeriCorps member he has also cultivated new partnerships in the Lansing area.”
Although dunked over 50 times into a chilly pool, Guy found the plunges well worth it. “Each time I got dunked, my body temperature dropped quickly. But, this was a great opportunity for exposure, getting new advocates, networking and recruiting potential volunteers for mentoring.”
For more information on Mentor Michigan, contact Scott Craven at scraven@connectmichiganalliance.org or 517-492-2440.
RSVP Volunteers Go the Extra Mile
By Kathleen Kelleher,
GIVE Program Director/RSVP Program Supervisor/Marketing Director,
Senior Services, Inc.
Connye and David are two RSVP In Home Support volunteers who certainly go the extra mile. When a client called late one summer night to report that her air conditioner had quit, leaving her and her dog sweltering in a mobile home, Connye and David stepped in. A fan, they reasoned, would be ineffective in the 90 plus degrees, so they hopped in their car at 11 p.m. on a Sunday night, bought a new air conditioner, installed it, and got home in time to get some sleep before they went to work.
That same month they took in her dog when the woman became too weak to care for her pet. On Saturdays, you might find them helping clients in many unorthodox ways: doing minor home repair, taking pets to the veterinarian, or driving a couple 30 miles to their home, having been released from the hospital with no means of transportation.
Best of all, they volunteer with a smile on their face. They inspire others to lend a hand, and make us proud and happy to know them not only as volunteers, but also as our friends!
9/11 One Day's Pay
9/14 MCC "Students as Colleagues" Colloquium (MSU, East Lansing)
9/15-9/17 MCC Student Leadership Camp (Sherman Lake YMCA, Augusta)
9/30 National Public Lands Day
10/5-10/6 CMA Board Retreat (South Haven)
10/13 MNA U.P. Conference (Marquette)
10/16-10/17 Campus Compact's 20th Anniversary Celebration (Chicago)
10/25 Mentor Michigan Conference (East Lansing)
10/28 Make A Difference Day
11/12 ~ 11/18 Geography Awareness Week
11/13 ~ 11/19 World Kindness Week
11/19 ~ 11/25 National Family Week
Corporation for National and Community Service
Editor: Tiffany Aurora, ConnectMichigan Alliance
Contributors:
Sara Ballard, ConnectMichigan Alliance
Iva Brownell, Ionia Intermediate School District
Kyle Caldwell, ConnectMichigan Alliance
Scott Craven, ConnectMichigan Alliance/Mentor Michigan
Mary Estrada, ConnectMichigan Alliance/Michigan's Promise
Lynn Ward Gray, Olivet College
Sara Grosvenor, Points of Light Foundation
Bonnie Hogoboom, Barry County United Way & Volunteer Center
Kathleen Kelleher, Senior Services, Inc.
Jeffrey Taylor, AmeriCorps Regional Member
Allison Treppa, ConnectMichigan Alliance
What do you think of our e-newsletter? Send us your feedback at cma@connectmichiganalliance.org.
Home | Contact Us | Sitemap | Search this Site | Privacy Statement | Disclaimer |