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Monday, March 16, 2009

Professional Service

Projects for Together We Can Change The World Day (T-Day) come in all shapes and sizes. When people consciously participate in service projects on the first Saturday of every month, they frequently do something that is completely different from what they do for a living.

Perhaps accountants are painting walls in public housing units, or bus drivers are cleaning up a riverbed, or bakers are visiting lonely senior citizens, or students are creating a television program about volunteerism for public access cable.

It can be a lot of fun to dive into a project that falls outside our own comfort zone! It gives us a chance to learn new things, think new ways, and see the world from a slightly different perspective.

But sometimes a T-Day project is an opportunity for us to utilize our career skills in a new and different way through pro bono activities. Several reports of projects from March 7 show us a side of volunteering that combines people's individual skills and talents to help make the world a better place.

Kathy is a graphic artist, and she spent T-Day creating an invitation for a gala fundraising event for the Duwamish Tribe in Washington state. She explains that the Duwamish Tribe has over 500 members who will benefit from the funds, which will be used to cover the cost of operating expenses for the tribe. Also, the gala will be attended by approximately 200 people, who will have a chance to experience the culture and history of the Duwamish people. Kathy is already planning her April, May, and June T-Day project as a follow-up to March 7, as she coordinates donated artwork and mails the printed invitations, and creates a catalog for the gala.

Plenty of computer specialists have donated their time and talents to help out those who need to upgrade their technological capacities.

Gary spent the day with two senior citizens programming their computers to access the Internet and teach them how to do basic web surfing and most importantly send and receive email from friends and family. Both ladies became very excited as they were able to see emails they created being sent to a family member or friend. The email program they wanted to use is IncrediMail which makes it very easy for a novice to send colorful emails with animation.

Jim helped a small non-profit upgrade its five donated pcs with software downloads and basic set-up and maintenance. The computers needed to have their hard drives cleaned and defragmented to make them run more smoothly.

Jean is an experienced manager of non-profit organizations, and she spent the day with the Board of Directors of a local youth development program to assist them with strategic planning, Board recruitment, and budgeting.

Mark is an attorney, and spent T-Day volunteering at his city's legal clinic for low-income families facing homelessness and dealing with their legal issues. He has volunteered at the clinic before, but now intends to offer his services there on the first Saturday of every month as a T-Day project.

Maggie works in the dietary division of a large hospital, and spent T-Day volunteering at a soup kitchen in her community. Because of her massive experience in food handling, food preparation, food service, and food sanitation, she was treated "like a rock star" at the soup kitchen because the staff and other volunteers were thrilled to have someone with her expertise on board for the day.

Those are just some of the stories of people who gave freely of their time and talents on T-Day by offering their "work" as volunteers. Great job!

Now is the time to plan what YOU are going to do to help make the world better on the next T-Day, April 4.

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