Everyone is at Disney

Cinderella's Castle must be bustling and buzzing with amazing people who were able to obtain Disneyworld tickets for volunteering. Goofy, Minnie, Pluto and Mickey must be excited to be surroundede by people who are willing to give their free time to help their community. And thanks to Disney's "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" campaign, we saw an unprecedented number of volunteers come out and help in the beginning of this year. These volunteers helped with projects that supported education, environmental restoration, hunger alleviation, etc. Their effect was far reaching in many aspects of Seattle and all over the country, and it is refreshing for volunteers to have gotten rewarded with a fun, light-hearted visit to Disneyworld.

While Nemo, Aladdin and Pocahontas shake hands (or fins) with our volunteers, we still have projects here in Seattle that could use love an attention. Though we can't offer any more Disney tickets (Disney gave them all out), we can offer all of the following opportunities and perks of volunteerism:
- Meet new people in your community!
- Network around Seattle
- Learn about the organizations that do amazing things everyday
- Feel good about making a difference; create "A Whole New World" here at home
- Use your skills or build new skills (good for the resume)
- Show your neighbors you care
- And many more...only to be discovered by doing!

Want to know more about how to experience all of the above things: Join us at one of our Hot Projects coming up, we have several that could still use some extra hands! You can also choose to join a Team Works Team coming up in September! Go to www.seattleworks.org for more information on both these programs. See you all out there!

"I want it that way ..."

It's about that time in my service where I feel the need to focus on fun. We threw a fun event last week that included forming new partnerships, recruiting new volunteers, cultivating our current participant base and raising some money for a new program.

Team Up is a nonprofit that produces high-quality music events (like our Gigs4Good event) to raise funds and awareness for other inspiring nonprofit organizations while providing an exciting and accessible avenue for people of all ages and stages of life to participate in meaningful giving.

Team Up for Nonprofits is awesome! Check them out: http://teamupfornonprofits.org/

Last Thursday night the Gigs4Good concert featured Alex Mercier with Thick as Thieves, along with opening act Bekker. Both are Seattle natives themselves and put on an awesome show. My personal favorite was when Bekker decided to bust out some old school Back Street Boys. Even better news: we were able to draw a substantial crowd of over 250 people!

The money raised from the concert is going toward our new HandsOn Leadership program. It's a training course and a volunteer project designed BY volunteers, all rolled into one. HandsOn Leadership gives our volunteers a chance to create new, meaningful volunteer projects that support the needs of local nonprofits. Plus, it was designed, created and implemented by our very own AmeriCorps*VISTA Stephanie. In my opinion, that makes her Larger Than Life ...

Slow August

It was been a slow August.. for volunteers, donations and customers. It has also been a month of change. I am now five months into my AmeriCorps term. Things are up and down. I think I hit that VISTA slump but things are turning around. I have some big plans for the fall. I am planning to do a utensil/cookware drive for my program. Working with the furniture bank, one thing that is often requested but not frequently donated are utensils and cookware. So I am going to go out in the community and talk with organizations about my program and how they can get involved. I am going to put boxes at these locations so people can drop off their donations. Once per week I will pick up the donations, bring them back to the office and sort through them. Then I can organize the donations into paper bags and get them sent out to the community. This way people can get involved who don't have trucks. People who drive cars or even ride bikes will be able to deliver these household items to House 2 Home customers. I am excited for this event. We are going to run it in correlation with our one year House 2 Home birthday. I think this will raise visibility of the program and hopefully recruit more volunteers.

So slow August will turn into a pretty hectic fall! Hope I can keep up!

Lisa

WVC, House 2 Home Network

Bellingham, WA

The school year is just around the corner. The 2010-2011 NOYC program year is about to begin. After a few summer months of investigating and planning, the board is chalked full of ideas. But without any funding, many of these ideas will not come to life. Either way, the program year is about to explode with activity. I will be at summer camp next week, practicing working with "underserved youth", and then the year will kick off with a leadership training and retreat at the lovely Camp Beausite in Chimacum, WA. Best of luck to everyone!

Deuces,

Lee

panic to the people

Sometimes, when you're right around the corner from launching a big ol' project that's been in the works for months, and the work really starts piling up, and the emails keep flooding in, and the pressure builds...and your project's ugly side turns its ugly head back at you and breaths its ugly, stale breath right in your face, and the piles of paper keep on growing, and there's really no good way of knowing exactly where you're going, to whom you should be showing, the winds of change are slowly blowing the product you're bestowing, and the mountains have all but stopped showing the snow they had been snowing, there's more work to be done than you have the tools to keep track of, and the mean old world keeps stomping it's heavy, unforgiving boot down upon the deep, personal rhythm that informs and precedes the funkalicious, Zappa-tastic techtonic projection that you work so hard to convey...it's a good time to keep blog posts concise and to the point - that is to say, short.

Chase

Where oh where did summer go?!

I suppose the fact that summer is flying by can be taken as a good sign that somehow between work and my social life, I'm staying busy. Let's be honest, it's probably just work.

Anyway, I've found myself crazzzy busy with Youth United. Little did I know how much coordination it takes when running weekly volunteer projects. It has been fun to see the wide range of opportunities available to youth in Pierce County- from helping at the zoo to painting a local home, there are plenty of ways to stay busy.

In the midst of organizing these projects, I have also starting my Alumni Project. We had our first social last week, that seemed to be fairly successful with some great feedback. I am excited to tie YU Alumni into their various communities. (On this topic: If anyone has any idea how to create material for a customized tab on Facebook... shoot it my way! I have successfully created a YU Alumni tab on our Youth United page, but have no idea how to create customized content for it... hmmm.)


Aside from this, I am gearing up for the new school year! As busy as it's going to be, I am excited to reach out to more students.

ALSO- A few of us were able to attend the training last week in Seattle. I am not sure if all of you went to various trainings... but if you would like information on grant writing or "Life After AmeriCorps"- let me know! VanessaF@uwpc.org

Until next time, soak up that sun!

Cheers,

Vanessa

regroup

The NOYC has no money and lots of ideas. My fellow coordinator and I write grants, edit grants, and wait for approval to submit grants...in the meantime more ideas come to light.

The program year begins next month. Projects include retreats, camping, beach clean up, painting, teen issue campaign, and other fun things...but we must secure funding.

This nonprofit world is starting to make me uneasy. I am headed home to regroup. Maybe I will find the answer to our funding concerns in "God's Country" or maybe I will just return refreshed and enthused.

Away to Montana...

Taylor Schraudner
North Olympic Youth Corps

Moving Right Along

I have a few big projects to work on this year. The first is over, I picked up planning a conference for my organization from another VISTA at my site when I started my term. The conference happened in July, I'm pretty sure I posted about it in June. Moving right along, my next big project is to revamp VAN (the Volunteer Administrators Network, my organization) website. Right now, it's pretty clunky and outdated, but I've been thinking hard, drawing on my (limited) knowledge of how websites function and collaborating with two of my board members. I've gathered everything into a single, readable, understandable presentation. I gave the presentation at the July board meeting to awe and admiration. Now, I pass on to you the highlights of the presentation:

Megan Ingram

Professional Development Coordinator

Seattle Works

the dream and the reality

The realization that money may not exist has prompted a new round of grant seeking and grant writing. And along with grant writing comes the task of defining what it is I'm actually doing. Ahh, the elevator speech. Such a simple idea. But it seems every time I meet with my supervisor, new ideas and realities surface, constantly changing the definition of my program. Some are merely additions to provide funders what they need to hear. Some are based on.... well, the reality of coordinating a youth volunteer program in a tiny town. Sometimes I wonder if this discredits me at all- to describe my program to community members only to see them a few weeks later and tell them it might, in fact, be something different. MIGHT. I'm currently struggling with a disconnect between what sounds good on paper and what is pragmatic given the nature and scope of working with a limited number of volunteers, a limited number of community agency needs and a limited amount of interest in participating. They are high schoolers. You dig?

Here's the elevator:

The Youth Corps is a student group aimed at promoting healthy, civically engaged youth. It engages students as peer mediators, provides ongoing leadership training and allows students to design and implement their own service projects. The hours of participants are tracked for two different forms of recognition: a Presidential Service Award and a Varsity Letter in Community Service.

Now it's time to engage students as agents of change in their own community! It's time to utilize their efforts to build the capacities of local agencies! Or maybe it's time to go write grants so that these things can happen at all. Student volunteers need food, transportation and training. All things that cost money. Time to go get that $$$$$.

Peace, love and radness,