VolunteerSpotlight: Karyn Ward, Concessions Stand Parent Volunteer Scheduler at Trinity Christian Academy

VolunteerSpot loves highlighting the good works of users around the country and salutes the many parents out there volunteering and fundraising for their children's schools and sports teams. Today our spotlight shines on Karyn Ward, parent concessions scheduler for Trinity Christian Academy in Addison, Texas, who uses VolunteerSpot to coordinate parent volunteers at the concession stand during various school events. Concession stands at sporting events are a great school fundraiser and tradition in many schools. They become a ready source for cash for the team and add enjoyment to any sporting event.

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Please tell us a little about yourself and your role as a volunteer leader.

I'm a married mom of two high school students and one college student.  My daughter's high school, Trinity Christian Academy, in Addison, TX, has a long-standing tradition of the sophomore students and parents staffing the concession stands during the year to raise money toward their Senior Trip. We purchase the food and supplies, prepare the concessions and man the booths. My particular role is to schedule the parents.

Where else do you volunteer?

I'm currently serving on the board of a local chapter of  a mother-daughter service organization, National Charity League, and am also the teaching leader of a ministry program to moms at my church.

How did you get interested in leading volunteers?

Coordinating volunteers is a needed component in order to achieve a desired goal, but it can be a role people are hesitant to do. I agreed to perform this responsibility for the year because I knew that using a service such as VolunteerSpot would make it much easier.

What are your volunteer needs at the concessions stand?

We ask each student to serve 8 hours in concessions during the year, and each students' parent/s to serve 8 hours (as a parental group). We set-up, cook, staff, clean, and take down concessions during sporting events (volleyball, football, basketball, soccer, baseball, wrestling, and track) and some school event (such as plays and concerts). We typically have 2-4 events a week that require volunteers.  We place parent volunteers with student volunteers for each event.

Why did you decide to use VolunteerSpot?

I investigated several online scheduling services and found that VolunteerSpot best met our needs, in large part due to your email reminder system and the ability to allow parents to go directly to each event and sign up. VolunteerSpot has been a true blessing to us.  Without your service, I would be making dozens of phone calls and sending dozens of emails, almost every day. Honestly, without your service, I don't think I would have agreed to do this role!

What’s one piece of advice you have for parent volunteers out there?

It's really only a short season of life that we get to be involved in our children's activities. Serve joyfully. These opportunities will be gone quickly.

Anything else you would like to add?

I'd like to thank VolunteerSpot for asking me to be featured in this post, but I'd especially like to thank all of our sophomore parents who work tirelessly and faithfully in the concessions stands!

To learn more about Trinity Christian Academy, please visit www.trinitychristian.org.

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We salute Karyn and all the volunteer heroes out there everyday who help out at school. If you're using VolunteerSpot, write and tell us about what you're doing, and give us a chance to shine our Volunteer Spotlight on you!! Just email us at [email protected].

Update

We heard from Karyn on February 11, 2010 and she had this awesome data to share: To date, we've used VolunteerSpot to schedule over 100 volunteers putting in almost 600 hours in our concession stands for 09-10 year!