Everyone in the field knows the current landscape: the economy is driving more and more people to look to their neighbors and local leaders for solutions. Nonprofit, faith-based, local government and school organizations have folks beating on their doors for resources, volunteer opportunities and solutions. The demand has far exceeded the supply per se as these resource-strapped organizations look to do infinitely more with way less.

We are solutions-oriented at HandsOn Network, so we’ve given the nod to our training development and execution experts at HandsOn University (HOU) to see what can be done.

As we take our annual conference from New York in 2010, to New Orleans in 2011, along the Road to the Gulf, we are training and activating leaders, building nonprofit capacity and mobilizing volunteers across the country. At strategic stops, we are conducting boot camps to train volunteer leaders to organize and manage others, and develop projects that address community-specific needs. Along with the training, our local HandsOn Action Centers are conducting service projects to put words into actions that address local issues.

From now through June 6, 2011, the road is taking us from San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago, and D.C. to New Orleans. You can find out more about each stop at Road to the Gulf.

BUT WAIT … HOU has taken it to the next level. Our goals are to train 10,000 new service leaders and activate 10,000 volunteers. We want everyone to be able to participate in service leader training so we have developed an online version of the boot camp training materials. We believe that the “road” is a civic pathway, a mindset towards self sufficiency and sustainable action. The road could include packing backpacks with books and healthy snacks for elementary school children in hard-hit gulf areas. Or, your civic path could start with service leader training and tools and resources to manage high-impact service projects in your own neighborhood.

Almost 1,000 people have hit the road with us already. In Atlanta and Charlotte, volunteers packed school supply kits and then received service leader training. Those kits then hit the road to New Orleans, where First Lady Cheryl Landrieu and HandsOn Network Co-Founder Michelle Nunn distributed them to elementary school kids at the Intercultural Charter School in New Orleans East.

We can’t wait to see what else we pick up along the way. Hit the road with HandsOn Network and be a part of the solution!