Community Based Care of Central Florida is a non-profit agency charged with developing community-based services and supports for children and families served by the child welfare system in Central Florida. A core value is the belief that all children have the inalienable right to grow up safe, healthy and fulfilled in families that love and nurture them.
"Every child, every day."
We have been committed to serving the children and families of Central Florida who have been victims of, or at risk of, abuse, neglect or abandonment since 2004. CBC is Florida's child welfare initiative that transfers public child welfare services to the private sector. In response to this initiative, a group of local providers came together to develop a community-based "lead agency" that combines compassion and innovation with flexibility. The result is CBC of Central Florida.
Today, our Volunteer Spotlight shines on Lydia Santis, Mentor and Volunteer Coordinator, Community Based Care of Central Florida, who uses VolunteerSpot's free online signup sheets to coordinate volunteers for their Christmas Extravaganza.
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Please tell us about your organization and your volunteer needs.
Our organization has 2 volunteer opportunities; we recruit Volunteer Mentors for our Legacy Mentor Program that serves our foster youth in the tri county area. Our second opportunity is our annual Christmas Extravaganza. Our Extravaganza incorporates over 150 volunteers to serve over 2,000 foster youth and their families. We provide gifts for our Foster families to give to their foster children on Christmas Day. We also have a Santa Claus to take pictures with, multiple craft stations, bike giveaways and lunch.
Explain how you use VolunteerSpot to coordinate these volunteers.
We used Volunteer Spot as our sign-up for Volunteers. We had multiple stations with different time slots that our volunteers could sign up for. We also needed a master list of all the volunteers to use as a sign-in sheet that day. Because of Volunteer Spot we were able to stay organized and assign volunteers accordingly.
What’s one piece of advice you have for volunteers or their leaders out there?
Be flexible! Some volunteers may stay the entire event and help clean up, other may need to leave early and may not inform you till the event. Instead of getting frustrated remember their giving the gift of their time.
Why did you decide to use VolunteerSpot?
We needed a site where volunteers could sign up with multiple volunteers and see what other people had volunteered for. Before we would send out an excel sheet to individuals and spend extra effort changing volunteers around who had signed up for the same time slot. We also needed to know when a volunteers cancelled. On Volunteer Spot it alerted us right away and let us know what time and station they had cancelled. Because of this we were able to fill those slots quickly with new volunteers.
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To learn more about Community Based Care of Central Florida, visit http://cbccfl.org/
We salute Lydia and all the other volunteers 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].
