Articles in the Featured Category
It’s Friday (and gloriously sunny out, if you haven’t noticed), and you know what that means? Volunteer round-up time! This is where we tell you about all the new volunteer opportunities that were posted on the United Way Volunteer Website in the past week. If you don’t see anything on this list that strikes your fancy, fear not! There are hundreds more volunteer listings for you to peruse at www.uwkc.org/volunteer. Yeehaw!
Tutor/Mentor Refugee Youth
Sponsor: Coalition For Refugees…
A Los Angeles Times article recently dubbed Seattleites “snow wimps” after our mid-January wintry blast shut down much of the city. Clearly, what the LA
Times didn’t know was that despite the snow, ice, and generally nasty weather, nearly 1,300 volunteers (and volunteer managers!) throughout King County left the comfort of their warm homes to spend the day serving the community in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Students from Seattle University and the University of Washington came…
The Jefferson Awards honors ordinary people who do extraordinary things for others. Initiated in 1972 to create a “Nobel Prize” for public service, awards are presented both nationally and locally. Five volunteers from Washington State will receive the Washington State Jefferson Award for their outstanding volunteerism. The winners will be judged by a panel of community leaders and their stories will be told on Evening Magazine the week of March 12th.
If you are a volunteer manager, or work with volunteers in any capacity, this…
Recruit and maximize your volunteers with the Volunteer Impact Program. Through this partnership between United Way of King County and 501 Commons, now in its third year, your organization can gain the tools to bring high-value volunteers on board, as well as utilize and retain them.
The free VIP program provides more than $20,000 in assessment, training and consulting services to boost your organization’s ability to engage and manage volunteers. In an era of diminishing financial resources, this is a real plus.
Take…
Kathy Rossol reads as a way of “investing in our future.” As a child she loved listening to stories read aloud; later she enjoyed reading to her daughter. Now she shares her love of books with the children at Seattle First A.M.E. CWB in Rainier Valley.
A child in this program (who speaks little English) used to cry every time her mother dropped her off. However, when Kathy began reading the book Abiyoyo (by Pete Seeger), the little girl began to hop and sing along…
When I dropped my son off at preschool this morning, it was 29 degrees outside. Not a warm morning to say the least, but at least it wasn’t raining, and I was off to help a group of volunteers build a playground at West Fenwick Park in Kent.
What I found when I arrived was about 30 volunteers from United Way, The Seattle Seahawks, GMC and a playground building company Sitelines, all digging in the frozen earth and laughing.
The build was part of…
The smallest boy in the Pike Market Child Care & Preschool class grabbed Harry’s hand to head back to school after a field trip to the library, and Harry instantly changed his plan to return to work. Holding the child’s hand, he walked with the class back to preschool. Harry is just that kind of guy.
Harry Bonnette is a Customer Service Specialist at United Way of King County and he has been a Volunteer Reader for four years. He started with a class of…
For the past 10 years, tax volunteers have chosen to spend the cold winter days nestled at tax sites preparing tax returns in lieu of a fireplace and hot chocolate. Last year alone 650 volunteers prepared 13,320 tax returns that helped bring back $19.7 million in federal refunds to our community. To celebrate our current tax volunteers and inspire future volunteers here are some (hopefully) compelling reasons to join our team.
10. You provide an invaluable direct service to members of your community
…
Veterans Day is a bit of an anomaly of a holiday. Unlike its fellow Federal Holidays, Presidents Day and Columbus Day, that recognize people who have made important contributions to our country, Veterans Day is unique in that many of those being honored are still alive, and virtually all of us have some connection to them. That’s pretty neat if you think about it. Maybe it’s your uncle who served in Vietnam, or your little sister stationed overseas, or a parent of a…
“What are we reading today?” Bonnie Rosalind asks the small pupils at Grace Children’s Center. Her favorite response is for a child to select a book that Bonnie herself loved to read while growing up; she believes that is “a true testament to the timelessness of books.”
Bonnie signed up for the Volunteer Reader Program on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2009. President Obama had declared that date a National Day of Service, and Bonnie took it as a call to action. Since then,…
