Volunteer Spotlight | Jeane Larkin, Food for Thought - Denver, CO
Happy Anniversary! Created one year ago with the sole purpose of feeding Denver's underprivileged children, Food for
Thought Denver is a stellar example of what people can do when they care about
their community and join together to make a difference.
Today, our spotlight shines on Jeane Larkin, who uses VolunteerSpot's online signup sheets to organize volunteers for Food for Thought - Denver.
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Please tell us about your organization and your volunteer needs.
Food For Thought – Denver is a grass-root, non-profit organization having a big impact childhood hunger in Denver, Colorado. Founded by the Arvada Sunrise Rotary Club in March of 2012, Food For Thought – Denver delivers over 600 “PowerSacks” of non-perishable food to the students at Fairview and Columbian Elementary schools in Denver every Friday. Over 90% of the students at each of these schools qualifies for free or reduced breakfast and lunch programs.
Check out a moving video overview from Food For Thought HERE.
Teachers and Principals at both schools reported to us that their students were coming to school on Monday mornings complaining of headaches; stomachaches and they just weren’t ready to learn! Each PowerSack we provide at no cost has enough food to feed a family of four for the weekend, bridging the nutritional gap that many of these children experience when they don’t have access to the meals that are provided at school.
Each week, approximately 30 volunteers work for 2 hours to fill the 600 PowerSacks for that week. These volunteers help us unload over 2 tons of food, fill grocery bags with food and place them in large plastic bins. The truck is then re-loaded and then unloaded again at each school. We are so fortunate to have a wonderful partnership with Metro State University of Denver who have provided us with a “home” and a huge pool of student volunteers. In the past year, we have registered over 500 volunteers through VolunteerSpot.
Explain how you use VolunteerSpot to coordinate these volunteers.
We use VolunteerSpot for all our volunteer coordination. When prospective volunteers inquire about our organization, I enter them in our Volunteer Spot volunteer database (Activity) and then use the option on the menu to “invite” to send them an introduction to VolunteerSpot. This connects them directly with our activity! Occasionally I use the “Create a Link” feature and cut and paste the link into an email that I send.
Both options work great, but I like capturing the prospective volunteer’s email address in our database on the front end. I really appreciate knowing that VolunteerSpot won’t sell or share our volunteers’ email addresses. The ability to send out group thank yous and emails is an unbelievable time saver! I use the Report function all the time for grant writing, publicity etc. I always have up-to-date information on the number of volunteers we have registered and how many hours our volunteers have worked both individually and as a whole. We can also use this feature to make sure we recognize the volunteers that working the most hours!
What’s one piece of advice you have for volunteers or their leaders out there?
Respond to all volunteer inquiries within a day if possible. I can’t tell you how many volunteers have signed up with us because they sent inquiries to several organizations and we were the first to respond! VolunteerSpot makes it super easy to record their info AND send an email inviting them to sign up.
Why did you decide to use VolunteerSpot?
Honestly, the number one reason was because it was free. But it also seemed to have all the features we needed. I thought we would use it for a couple of months and when we could afford it, we would switch to a more sophisticated system. But it has been fantastic, has meet all our needs and we have made a commitment as an organization to keep our overhead expenses at zero, so VolunteerSpot is a critical part of our keeping that promise.
Anything else you’d like our readers to know about your organization or volunteering?
Yes! We have been nominated for a $20K grant that will be based solely on consumer voting on Facebook! The voting will take place from April 1-30 so between now and then we are trying to build our social media presence! Like Us on Facebook and help us win this grant!
www.facebook.com/foodforthoughtdenver
twitter: @FFT_Denver
We salute Jeane and all the other volunteer leaders out there making a difference. 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].
