Meet our newest Volunteer of the Month, John Fricke! John began volunteering with GLFB shortly after the opening of the new distribution center in Bath in 2021. He enjoys volunteering for many reasons, including meeting new people, and says his fellow volunteers, GLFB employees and supervisors are all friendly and helpful. John says he finds the work of the food bank even more crucial for neighbors experiencing food insecurity, given the economic hardships associated with unemployment, the recent COVID-19 pandemic and continued inflation. "If you are looking for a way to provide community service, I would recommend that you contact GLFB," John said. "It does not cost you anything; you work with your hands and mind to solve problems and have fun at the same time." When not volunteering, he enjoys participating in the choir at Hope Lutheran Church in DeWitt, reading and spending time with children and grandchildren.
Greater Lansing Food Bank’s Post
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Helping our youth become ACT ready.
During our August 7th Ferguson Youth Advisory Board meeting one of our students asked for ACT tutoring. Tonight, we had our first Free ACT tutoring session. We are thankful for the support we receive from the community. Please let us know if you're interested in volunteering.
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Career Transition Specialist | Job Search Strategist | Career Coach & Consultant | LinkedIn Optimization Mentor | Interview Coaching Pro | Empowering clients to navigate career transitions with clarity and success.
Give up some of your time this holiday season and give back to something you care about! Why? Here are 10 reasons: 1. It's the Season of Giving 2. It could lead to a new career 3. It can boost your confidence 4. Volunteering is fulfilling 5. You might learn new skills 6. It's a great way to relieve stress 7. You gain a new perspective 8. You will spread cheer 9. You will meet new people 10.You will make a difference There are a lot of organizations in your area that are in need of volunteers. Find one that is of interest to you and give back to your community. It will get you out of the house and away from the computer, you’ll meet new people, and you may find an interest you didn’t even know you have. Not sure where to look? Try some of these: Local hospitals, Toys for Tots, Red Cross, Salvation Army, food pantries, schools, senior living facilities, senior citizens centers, YMCA, or google "Holiday volunteering near me" GIVE IT A TRY! YOU’LL BE GLAD YOU DID!!!
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Nothing like reading an article filled with things you've been saying for YEARS and people rolled their eyes at you... "6 Ways a Volunteer Program Can Burst the Bubbles We Live In" All my favs: how volunteering can bring people with very different points of view together, why EVERYONE should be invited to volunteer, why it's sometimes a good idea to say "come help your neighbors" instead of "come volunteer!", and on and on: https://lnkd.in/gax6rYuF
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Adding this to my reading list.
I've been reading Fr. Gregory Boyle's "Barking to the Choir" this week. The following sentence hooked me and wouldn't let go. "We always seem to be faced with this choice: to save the world or savor it. I want to propose that savoring is better, and that when we seek to 'save' and 'contribute' and 'give back' and 'rescue' folks and EVEN 'make a difference', then it is all about you...and the world stays stuck....The good news, of course, is that when we choose to 'savor' the world, it gets saved. Don't set out to change the world. Set out to wonder how people are doing. (p. 174-5)" This certainly hits a nerve with me personally (it's one of the reasons I have worked in and with nonprofits) - and professionally as someone who works with staff and volunteers and partners wanting to do all these things. Fr. Boyle goes on to point out that "before things become mutually beneficial at the margins, they need to be mutually relational" (p. 182), which echoes activist Bryan Stevenson's call to get proximate with others. This is a fundamental reframing of "service", particularly project-based service. Volunteer projects that are plug-and-play-and-walk-away can meet a need but they rarely are relational. If we're honest, that's the appeal. They allow us to do "community" on our own terms and without entanglement. True community asks us to show up and keep showing up, even when it isn't convenient or easy or fun. Which makes me wonder how project-based service can be a bridge or portal to community. I'm also thinking about what it means for me to be mutually relational. How am I showing up in community? Where am I missing the mark? How does mutual relationship show up in my work about volunteer impact and volunteer purpose...and corporate volunteering, which I posted about last week? How do we create conditions for mutual relationship in nonprofits when our organizations are rarely structured for it (and are often structured against it)?
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#FAQ Q: Can I be a SPIRIT NYS mentor? A: No We get asked this question a lot by people who are interested in volunteering. The short answer is usually no. The long answer is that our mentors are staff at our partner schools. When arrangements occur to offer our program at a school, one of the employees agrees to guide the students who enroll in SPIRIT NYS. This is usually a school social worker, coordinator, or counselor. The good news is that there are other ways to volunteer, such as organizing a supply drive and supporting fundraisers. Click the link below for more volunteering options, and message us to get involved! https://lnkd.in/grpXtxAA
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🌟 What is Outreach Ministry? Outreach ministry is not just a term; it's a way of life! It means putting faith into action by helping and serving others. Whether it’s volunteering at shelters or organizing food drives, outreach is how we show love and compassion in practical ways. 🔗 Learn about the vital role of church outreach and how it’s transforming communities in our newest blog. https://hubs.li/Q02wPxcR0 #OutreachMinistry #VisitorReach #FaithInAction
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Now this is big.....100,000,000 volunteer hours powered by Rosterfy 😳 🥳 *A little story here* We never meant to even launch Rosterfy...In fact, we proactively said no to anyone that wanted to use Rosterfy for the first 12 months of it's existence! A little background....In 2015 Bennett Merriman Christopher Grant and I were running our first business together Event Workforce in Australia. A company we launched at uni to help connect motivated university students to opportunities to build their experience and help get a job at the end of their degree. From 2010 to 2015 we grew Event Workforce to having over 20,000 workforce staffing over 1,500 events a year. We had spreadsheets going everywhere, staff had to re register for every event and to put it bluntly - we were giving both our clients and our workforce a crappy experience because we couldn't operate at scale. A feeling I know a lot of prospects have when we speak to them today! That's why we built Rosterfy to solve our OWN PROBLEMS...And hence why we said no to anyone that wanted to use the platform, we wanted to ensure we used the platform ourselves to learn and iterate before anyone else - and the initial intention of Rosterfy was simply to help us better manage our OWN workforce - not for anyone else to use the platform. But over the first 12 months of using Rosterfy, we began to realise that what we cared about was connecting good people to good work, and we could help make this impact on a larger scale than just Australia with a platform like Rosterfy. To think there's now been 100m hours of opportunities generated is crazy but at the same time it feels like we are just getting started - there's still so much to do! It's moments like these to reflect (briefly) on the people that took a chance on us early days (you know who you are!), our passionate team that has been with us from the beginning, our investors and partners and the support from family and friends along the way. Thank you. We are now live in 26 countries operating in 10 languages and over 50 passionate full time Rosterfy team members around the world. We're driven to be the best in the world at mass workforce management and now do we start to think of 1 billion hours??!!
This month, Rosterfy achieved a huge milestone thanks to our wonderful customer's volunteer programs throughout the world. 100 MILLION VOLUNTEER HOURS POWERED BY ROSTERFY 🎉 With a mission to connect communities to events and causes through volunteering, this is a significant milestone that we're incredibly proud of. A big shout out to our customers, the Rosterfy team and most importantly the volunteers, for continuing to always show up and give back. We caught up with our 100 millionth hour volunteer, Carlton College of Sport student, Lauren Raftopoulos (pictured alongside Rosterfy Chairman, David Kirk and CEO, Bennett Merriman) to congratulate her and learn more about what volunteering means to her. Read the full story, via the link below. https://lnkd.in/gr7VZcyt #rosterfy #connectingcommunities #volunteer #volunteering #100millionhours
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New blog: Young volunteers – breaking down barriers. Our Volunteering Development Officer, Ellie supports people to volunteer in their local community. Ellie would like to see an increase in the numbers of young people volunteering: "What I would like to see more of now, is young people getting involved, especially young people with additional needs or facing barriers." You can read her new wonderful blog here where she breaks down the barriers young people face and offers advice: https://buff.ly/4c2Dqje We know that volunteering is great for skills, experience, confidence, to make new friends and get involved in the community - so please share this blog to help us encourage young people to volunteer! #Volunteering
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"Volunteers are like trees with deep roots in their nonprofit organizations," said Yifan Yu, assistant professor of information, risk, and operations management at Texas McCombs School of Business, United States. "The more connections or 'roots' volunteers have with each other in different social layers, like communities and schools, the more likely they are to continue volunteering." Yu and co-authors Jane Tan of Southern Methodist University and Yong Tan of the University of Washington used a Chinese crowdsourcing platform from the Beijing Volunteer Service Federation to analyze the volunteer activity of 827,260 Beijing-area residents from 2011 to 2019. Among their findings: • Volunteers were more likely to continue volunteering at a nonprofit organization, and to volunteer more frequently, if they had connections to the people there. • Those with multiple connections—such as overlapping work, neighborhood, or schooling ties—were 27% more likely to remain involved than those with a single connection. Read more: https://buff.ly/3WhUFb9
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