Wednesday, November 17, 2010

An Easier Way to Manage Volunteering

One of the great assets and strengths of the Valley community has always been its spirit of volunteerism. If you take a look around the Valley on any given day, you will see volunteers doing everything from cooking for the homeless to cleaning our rivers and manning our emergency services. Its a Valley characteristic that has served the community well over time.It's also something that Valley United Way believes in very strongly as shown by our commitment to having a Volunteer Center in the Valley.You can find a lot of information about the Volunteer Center and the great work being done on our website, but I want to take time today to discuss our "on-line" Volunteer Center - Volunteer Solutions.

We recognized a long time ago that a barrier for people who want to volunteer is finding out just what opportunities are available. At the same time, it has always been a challenge for groups who need volunteers to get the word out to the community about their needs. Our Volunteer Solutions website meets the needs of both groups - and does it at efficiently and free!

If you are looking to volunteer, all you have to do is go to the website (https://volunteer.truist.com/uwvalley/volunteer/). You can easily browse through listings of opportunities or of agencies looking for volunteers. You can also do a search by just about any criteria that you choose to find something that meets your time and talent. If you register, you can even customize the site so that it brings up your preferences when you log-in, or you can even have it periodically (As often as you choose) send you notices about opportunities that interest you.

If you are an agency that is looking for volunteers, you go to a different part of the website (https://volunteer.truist.com/uwvalley/agency/) to register. Once you register, you will fill in information about your group and then list your opportunities for potential volunteers to see. You can also create a wish list of items that your agency would like donated. If you are looking for Board members, you can also list those opportunities. If you have an event coming up, yuo can also post that on the calendar. It's possible to set up multiple people to administer your group's listing, and the group has full control over that once approved to use the system.


We are able to offer this great service thanks to a grant from the Raymond P. Lavietes Foundation.Ray was one of the best volunteers the Valley has ever seen, and we are grateful that his legacy includes the promotion of volunteerism in the Valley.


For more information about Valley United Way, visit our website at www.valleyunitedway.org.

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