A Brighter Path Foundation is a nonprofit supporting entity for Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind, funding innovative programs for people of all ages who are blind or visually impaired.
Today, our Volunteer Spotlight shines on Jenny Lawrence Viars, Program Coordinator for Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind and A Brighter Path Foundation.
Tell us about a Brighter Path Foundation and your volunteer needs.
A Brighter Path Foundation is the supporting foundation for Winston-Salem Industries for the Blind (IFB). IFB is primarily a manufacturing facility, and over 75% of our employees are legally blind. In order to support our employees and the community, we have established programming for persons who are blind or visually impaired, through A Brighter Path. For adults, we offer art and computer classes; provide support for a Toastmasters Club and a new on-site Lions Club; and provide meeting space for support groups, the Grito Book Club, and the IFB Community Choir, among other activities.
In 2007, we established programming for students who are blind or visually impaired, called the Student Enrichment Experience (SEE). Since 2007, we have grown from seven students to 21, and we host a 5-week summer day camp and other activities throughout the year. All activities, including camp, are free for the students. As you can imagine, all of these programs require a lot of volunteers to be successful! For summer camp this year, we had 31 volunteers for the 15 camp days, with a 1:1 volunteer-to-student ratio. Many of our volunteers are dedicated teenagers who attended almost every day. Besides camp, we also need volunteers to help at fundraising events, complete office work, drive employees to the store or the doctor, and to work in our audio library, and in other capacities as needed.
How did you get started as a volunteer leader?
For a long time, we have had an unofficial volunteer program, with a few individuals that would help out as necessary. With the success and growth of both SEE and other A Brighter Path programs, we decided to formalize the volunteer system about two years ago. Since I work closely with the SEE program, which uses the most volunteers, it made sense for me to work with the volunteers, as well. However, all of the Foundation staff work closely to help achieve our goals, and being involved with the volunteer program is no exception!
What’s one piece of advice you have for volunteer leaders out there?
Communicating with your volunteers is the key to a successful volunteer program, whether it’s through email, VolunteerSpot, letters, or Facebook. We try to make sure the volunteers know how much we value their time and service, and that we are interested in them as individuals. I think that even simple updates about upcoming volunteer opportunities are a great way to keep volunteers interested and engaged with the organization. After all, they are a huge part of the success of all our employee and community programs.
Why did you decide to use VolunteerSpot?
As my volunteer database started to grow, I was seeking an easier way to communicate with volunteers about our needs and to track our volunteer use. There are many complicated and expensive programs out there for that purpose, but I was looking for something simple for our relatively small group of volunteers. Thankfully, I stumbled upon VolunteerSpot earlier this year, and it has been such a time-saver. VolunteerSpot is simple and straightforward for me to set up and schedule activities, and the site makes it easy for the volunteers to sign up for those activities.
Anything else you’d like our readers to know?
IFB is also dedicated to increasing awareness about blindness and low vision for the sighted community, through Sensitivity to Blindness classes and other outreach events. If you’re ever in the Triad area, I encourage you to contact us for a tour – we love to share with others our myriad activities and programs!
To learn more, visit http://www.abpfoundation.org/
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We salute Jenny and all the volunteer leaders working to help others and support the causes they care about. 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].
