To honor the life of Martin Luther King Jr. the community is joining together to give service on January 18th. Community Outreach Day, hosted by Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University in partnership with United Way, starts with a devotional and then service projects and ends with a candlelight processional. This day of service will allow community members to get involved and to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr's accomplishments. Service projects range from community clean up to service with the elderly. No preregistration is required. Simply attend registration at the Wilkinson Ballroom on BYU's campus at 8 a.m. After registration and a devotional, service projects will be assigned. Sully Bryan, a VISTA in the United Way of Utah County's office, is helping plan this day of service. If you have questions you can contact her at, 801-691-5314. All VISTAs are encouraged to participate and to share this information with friends, family and other contacts.
I wanted to thank all the VISTAs who helped recruit Facebook fans. We are now over our goal of 1,000 fans! The little competition was a great success.
I also thought it would be nice to showcase some of the activities we are involved in. Brian has been doing an awesome job at the Angel Tree Warehouse. He has spent many hours sorting and organizing presents and handling volunteers who deliver the gifts! I made a rudimentary video of Brian at the warehouse. He kindly showed us around. If you are interested in seeing what happens behind the Sub for Santa scenes, just check out the video. I apologize for it being sideways. I will work on my editing and filming skills in the future. The rest of the VISTAs, in United Way's office, have been busy answering Sub for Santa calls and taking donations. It has been fun getting ready for the Christmas season and great to see the generosity of the community. They are really stepping up to help with the all the children and families who need help this year! As of today we only have 92 families left!
Calling all Provo VISTAs! I am issuing a challenge. One of my responsibilities at United Way is to run the Facebook fan page. My goal is to have 1,000 fans before the end of the year. I need your help! Become a fan yourself and suggest it to your friends. It is an easy way to help a fellow VISTA and best of all there will be a great prize for whoever recruits the most fans. The competition will end right before our VISTA party on Friday. Come on Friday ready to report the number of fans you recruit. Thank you for your support and good luck! May the best VISTA win! Visit our fan page here.
On November 21st, more than 220 people, some 37 groups and families, gathered together to give service. Raquel Lopez, one of our Provo VISTAs, organized Family Volunteer Day, a national day of service. The day started out with a scrumptious breakfast of pancakes followed by many different service projects. Families helped rake leaves at the cemetery, decorate organizations for Christmas, helped disabled individuals make Christmas cards and decorations, helped build houses and much more. Many VISTAs attended and lent a hand making pancakes, registering volunteers, seting-up and cleaning. It was fun to see so many happy volunteers show up with a positive attitude towards service. It is wonderful that parents were instilling the values of service in their children at a young age. Good job to Raquel for working so hard to pull off this awesome day of service.
VISTAs Charley and Jill busy making delicious pancakes
Stephanie on pancake duty
Excited volunteers
Princesses volunteer too
Making Christmas decorations at TURN
Moving mountans or doors at Rural Housing Development Corporation construction site
To view more photos, please visit us on Facebook at:
Please mark your calendars for the annual VISTA Individual Service Training (IST) Conference! The Conference will be held at the Provo Marriott on January 27-29, 2010. All VISTAs in Utah are expected to attend, and if you cannot, please let Carrie know ASAP. We are very excited for this skill-based training, and the theme is "Tools for Sustainability." Topics include: sustainability, stakeholders, social media, PR, evaluating your project, and more.
Please make sure you register for the conference online by this Friday by click on the following link: VISTA IST Registration
All food and lodging will be paid for, and gas mileage round-trip will also be reimbursed. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let Carrie know. Get excited for this helpful and fun training!
Every month the Community Center keeps on growing! More and more people are getting involved in their own community. Last week, there was the first of a series of Neighborhood Leadership Meetings. These meetings are the result of a collaboration between VISTAs and DCFS workers/University of Utah Social Work grad students. The meeting went well, with neighbors discussing what they liked about their community, and what they thought could improve. The second neighborhood meeting will be on Saturday, November 7th at 1:00 pm at the South Franklin Community Center (750 S. 650 W.) Be sure to check out the community center blog (sfccboulders.blogspot.com) and Facebook Fan Page (South Franklin Community Center) for the November calendar of events as well as for updates on the Thanksgiving activity!
Every month Brian, our benevolent VISTA leader, compiles a newsletter full of tips, ideas and suggestions to help us in our jobs as VISTAs. I thought it would be fun to include parts of the newsletter in our blog.
Retain the One-time Volunteer
Many people this time of year are looking for the “episodic” or “one-time” volunteer experience, however even though this might be the initial desire of the volunteer, consider the following to help your project retain these volunteers:
Be a great place to volunteer, be prepared and make volunteers feel welcome.
Train sufficiently, set expectations and give them a purpose.
Recognize your volunteers!
Carefully screen and match volunteers to organizational tasks.
Be careful in how you supervise and communicate with volunteers, don’t make them feel like they are at their job.
Provide a culture that is welcoming to volunteers and allocate sufficient resources to support them.
Adopt practices that are directly concerned with satisfying volunteers to help you increase your rate of retention.
Brianstorm Opportunities
Brainstorm ideas of new volunteer opportunities. Many organizations get overwhelmed with volunteers, making any available opportunity a hot commodity. Be creative and get ideas from all members of your organization.
Plan Ahead
Think big and think ahead. The holidays are the perfect time of year to try and fill your wish list. Whether you need more volunteers, an in-kind donation or monetary contributions, by planning ahead and making the ask you have a perfect opportunity to tap into the resources in your community.
Get the Word Out
Make sure your volunteer opportunities accessible! Get the word out about how volunteers can help your organization this holiday
season. Use your local volunteer center or the state wide online services to help connect you to volunteers.
Look forward to next month's newsletter as well! Thanks Brian!
AmeriCorps VISTA is the national service program designed to fight poverty. VISTA members commit to serve full-time for one year at a nonprofit organization or local government agency. They do not generally provide direct services, but instead focus their efforts on building the organizational, administrative, and financial capacity of organizations that help to fight poverty in their communities.
The Volunteer Empowerment Project
There are 19 AmeriCorps VISTA members on the Volunteer Empowerment Project, which is run by the United Way of Utah County. The members are located in Ogden, Salt Lake City, Provo, Orem, St. George, and Richfield. Their focuses are quite varied, but they all have one common goal: to fight poverty.
Please enjoy reading about the projects and successes of our Volunteer Empowerment VISTAs!
