Volunteer Spotlight | Whitney Brandt, Parent & Community Relations, Cornerstone Charter Academy, Belle Isle, Florida
The mission of Cornerstone Charter school is to provide a college preparatory educational environment with a curricular emphasis on biotechnology and life sciences that furthers the philosophy of respect and high expectations for all, enabling students to become confident, self-directed, and responsible life-long learners.
Today, our spotlight shines on Whitney Brandt, Community relations coordinator for Cornerstone Academy in Belle Isle, Florida, who uses VolunteerSpot's online signup sheets to organize over 1,200 volunteers.
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Tell us about your role as a parent volunteer leader.
I am the Volunteer Coordinator for a K-12 Charter School in Belle Isle, Florida. We have approximately 1,200 approved volunteers, as each family is required to complete at least 30 volunteer hours of approved volunteer activities.
How do you use VolunteerSpot to coordinate your parent volunteers?
Each week, I send out a Volunteer Update via email; it includes reminders of various volunteer and school requirements, as well as links to all of the ongoing, current, and upcoming volunteer opportunities. For instance, Lunch Duty, Car Line & Jeans Day Wristband Sales (we have a uniform requirement and the students have the option of jeans on Fridays for $1) are weekly events.
Occasionally, we'll have a "Teach In" opportunity where I need additional parents to come in and serve as crowd control in the auditorium. I also use Volunteerspot to staff our Used Uniform Store, and Teacher Workroom, which are trained activities only sent out to specific groups of people. My favorite events to schedule via volunteerspot each year are Ducktoberfest (our annual fall festival) and the Silent Auction/Pancake Breakfast, for which we have dozens of different shifts throughout the day, and multiple people in each shift...allowing for a one-time setup for me, and then volunteers can sign up and cancel and replace one another as needed.
What other activities are you involved in as a volunteer or volunteer leader?
So far, I only coordinate all of the volunteers within my job requirement, but I am starting to get involved with some community volunteer projects. I also encouraged my Boosters Club, and the Homeroom parents within my school to use their own Volunteerspot account to organize concession stand and in-class volunteers, and they have had a very successful time of it so far.
What’s one piece of advice you have for parent volunteers out there?
Delegate! Delegate! Delegate! You cannot do it all yourself, and if you try, people will always expect it of you. Find a few right-hand people with whom you work well and get them to help recruit, delegate, and keep you from getting too overworked and burnt out.
Why did you decide to use VolunteerSpot?
A parent suggested it to me after the first year I was in my job, running around dealing with reply-all emails, last minute cancellations, and too much scrambling to rearrange hundreds of volunteers each week. Volunteerspot gives me a wonderful way to plan, expect, and handle cancellations, etc. while allowing me to focus on the other aspects of my job so that I don't waste time constantly telling people that certain activities are full.
Anything else you’d like our readers to know about your school, event, or volunteering?
We're a community school that is hinged on Parental Involvement. Volunteerspot has become an integral part of helping to communicate all of the available opportunities to our parents. I don't know how we ever did without it!
For more information, visit www.cornerstonecharter.com
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We salute Whitney 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].
