Volunteer Spotlight | Jeanette Miller, Bartlesville Band and Orchestra Boosters, Bartlesville, OK
Concession stands are a great way to raise money for your school. The best part is, you can utilize volunteers to run the stand, which reduces your overhead costs. Therefore, more money can go right to the sports boosters, music boosters, or where ever extra money is needed at the school.
Today, our Volunteer Spotlight shines on Jeanette Miller, who uses VolunteerSpot's online signup sheets to schedule parent volunteers at her school's concession stand.
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The Concession Team: Teresa, Janet and Jeanette
Tell us about your event.
I represent the Bartlesville Band and Orchestra Boosters (BBOB) from Bartlesville High School. We are the parents of over 250 9th - 12th grade High school students that participate in the Band and Orchestra. As our club's main source of funds, we run the concession stand for all 8th and 9th grade football teams and the Varsity and Jr. Varsity football teams. Depending on how many games are played on any given night, we will have between 8 and 14 parents working. For Varsity Games, we run two concession stands, so we will have a set up crew of 15 and 40 volunteers throughout the night.
Please share your role as a volunteer leader for this event.
As President of the BBOB, I work with two other wonderful volunteers, Teresa and Janet. When we began to organize the season, we each took on specific roles. Janet and Teresa did inventory and purchased the food. Along the way, we picked up another very helpful volunteer, Audra, to help purchase the food. My job became setting up the volunteers. We had 290 volunteer opportunities that we needed to fill - to say that I was a bit overwhelmed, is an understatement. One of our parents sent me an email about the website and I jumped right on it. Once I input everyone that had signed up at our first parents' meeting, I sent out the website link every time I needed more volunteers. The last thing I did was recruit a volunteer that would call everyone that did not have an email address in the system. By the end of the season, she only had to make 1 or 2 calls a month.
What other activities are you involved in as a volunteer or volunteer leader?
I am actively involved in The Downtown Bartlesville Kiwanis and serve on the Youth Services Committee. I am responsible for coordinating the Sophomore and Senior of the Year awards that the club gives each year.
Do you have any advice for other volunteer leaders out there?
Here is my advice for any other volunteer coordinators - Just take it one activity at a time. I was really hoping when I entered all of the "opportunities" in Volunteerspot, that I would not have to keep asking for people to sign up, but I did. I learned to take it one activity at a time and it will get done. Our team had a saying "We can do anything 15 times!" and then the next game would be over and we would say "We can do anything 14 times!" It really helped us get through the season!
Anything else you’d like our readers to know about your school, event, or volunteering?
Because we used Volunteerspot, I have had several people from our group decide to use it for their groups. Everything from homeroom class parties to youth groups to community service opportunities.
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We salute Jeanette Miller and all the other volunteer school leaders out there making a difference in our world. 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].
