This post is by Kathy Saulitis, senior vice president of programs for generationOn, an enterprise of Points of Light that helps young people change the world through volunteer service.
The Miscoe family of Texas volunteers together often
at a local food pantry.
The holiday season is filled with opportunities for children to be caring and compassionate. And for parents, it starts with showing your kids how it’s done! Let your children see you helping elderly neighbors rake their leaves, being kind to those around you in crowded stores or collecting canned goods for the hungry.
Right before Thanksgiving, we celebrate Family Volunteer Day. On Nov. 23 this year, it is a day that showcases families making a difference in their communities and kicks off the season of giving. Here are five easy ways to teach your kids values – and do some good for others – on Family Volunteer Day and throughout the year.
1. Talk to your children about issues affecting your neighborhood, your community and the world. When my oldest son was in elementary school and was involved in a holiday food drive, he didn’t immediately see why people needed help at all. His initial reaction was, “They just need to go get a job!” In simple language, I explained about income versus expenses and how the very people we were helping to feed may be working several jobs but still are short for food. As a young problem-solver, he thought for a while and then suggested ideas for how our country might deal with hunger in new ways. He got it!
2. Use the dinner hour to talk about reaching out to others. Do you have a neighbor that may be sick or lonely? Are there struggling families in your community? Do you know someone in the service who is deployed? Talk to your children about how they feel about these situations and get their input on ways your family can help.
3. Appeal to your children’s interests. Does your family love the outdoors? Do your kids like to get their hands dirty? Try volunteering for a park or beach clean-up or help plant a community garden. The more you draw on your children’s interests, the more motivated they become.
4. Find a hands-on, family-friendly volunteer project. You can find family-friendly project ideas and resources at www.generationOn.org or check out your local HandsOn Network affiliate.
5. Start a family tradition of volunteer service during the holidays. The holidays are times of excitement, tradition and family togetherness. When our children were younger, we would make Holiday Hope Chests to donate to area homeless shelters. It was fun to watch the kids choose with care their special gifts for children they imagined opening the boxes on Christmas morning.
When the holidays end and the new year begins, remember every day is an opportunity to teach your kids to care and share, be compassionate and have an attitude of gratitude for even the smallest things in life.
This year Family Volunteer Day takes place on Nov. 23. Disney Friends For Change, a Disney initiative dedicated to inspiring kids and families to make a positive change in the world, is the presenting sponsor of Family Volunteer Day 2013. Embassy Suites is a supporting sponsor.
Why Where You Don’t Work Is as Important as Where You Do
Startups that “dream” together grow together.
That’s our hypothesis at the Points of Light Civic Accelerator, a 12-week boot camp-style program that supports and invests in seed-stage “civic ventures,” or startups that engage people to solve pressing social issues in our communities.
Civic Accelerator teams gather at Hilton Garden Inn Atlanta
Midtown to unwind.
In our newest partnership with Hilton Worldwide, the 15 ventures in the fall 2013 Civic Accelerator will not only spend intensive daytime hours working together on their startups, but they’ll also kick back, relax and “dream” alongside their peers during weeklong meetings in Atlanta, Silicon Valley and New York City over the next three months.
In the first year of the Civic Accelerator, we made a number of small (and sometimes big) bets to determine the right quantity and mix of startup ingredients – capital, entrepreneurial education, mentoring, peer collaboration, introductions to investors and others – that would allow for our ventures to successfully attract investment and scale their social innovation.
One, perhaps critical, ingredient was not so obvious at first – space. We don’t mean space in the literal square-footage, work-area sense. But rather, we’re referring to “no-working” space:
No-working space
nō -ˈwərkiNG spas noun
A regenerative space to unwind and connect meaningfully with a peer or colleague over a warm drink on a comfy couch, instead of over a business-model canvas, surrounded by a rainbow of post-its.
Early feedback from our first two accelerator classes indicated a strong desire for more unstructured time together in such “no-working” spaces where they could interact and interplay with like-minded peers on all sorts of topics, not just their ventures. Externally, we’ve seen this trend reinforced through initiatives such as the Social Impact House at the University of Pennsylvania, and Krash, which provides turnkey living communities exclusively for entrepreneurs and innovators in Chicago, Boston and New York.
We recently completed our first intensive meeting in Atlanta, during which the majority of our entrepreneurs stayed under one roof at the Hilton Garden Inn Atlanta Midtown. Many of the entrepreneurs in our program immediately took advantage of the no-working space to share a toast of their first pitch, invite a new friend on a walk around Atlanta or squeeze in additional time providing feedback to another venture. (OK, so it’s not 100 percent no-working…)
We’ll continue to test this hypothesis on the importance of shared, no-working space over the next few months, and hope to report back with stories of startup serendipity, midnight epiphanies and maybe even a pillow fight (or two).
How do you create no-working space in your accelerator or startup organization? We’d love to learn from you. Leave a comment, or say “hello” at [email protected].
For This Veteran, a Gift That Hits Home
Lindsey Kirksey stands outside his childhood home.
Lindsey Kirksey’s childhood home is falling apart – two of the four rooms are literally separating from each other. And while he cherishes the memories of growing up in the cozy, one-story house in Montgomery, Ala., he knows it’s time for it to go.
“The volunteers I spoke to – they are just like me; they want to help people just like I want to help people,” Kirksey says. “I believe what comes around goes around. I have been so blessed and because of that I try to help others. And I think they feel the same.”
Kirksey served in the Army Chemical Corps during the Korean War, laying ground cover for troop movement. Since then, he has led life of service. He has taught math in low-income neighborhoods in the Montgomery area; used his teaching skills at Bidwell Training Center, a vocational school in Pittsburgh that reaches out to those who need help turning their lives around; and served as a corrections officer in Selma, Ala.
Volunteers are helping Lindsey Kirksey move out of his
home temporarily, including packing his possessions.
Kirksey’s home – known as a “shotgun house,” one room wide and four rooms deep – is beyond repair. The volunteer project will require demolishing the nearly 100-year-old structure and erecting a new house based on the original floor plan.
“When we reviewed his application (for assistance), what really stood out was his overwhelming story and the fact that he has dedicated his life to service,” says Nell Weisenfeld, volunteer coordinator and program manager at HandsOn River Region. “He also grew up in this home. In fact, when we reviewed the home we even found paperwork from his father when he was helping the church across the street – and that really hit a chord with us.”
The volunteers from Exelis Action Corps, the signature volunteer service program for aerospace and defense company Exelis, are stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery. Exelis supports the base through civil engineering, airfield management, communications, recreation and more.
“At Maxwell we employ all kinds of trades, people who are experts in doing this kind of work, and a large percentage of us are also veterans,” says Jeffrey Jackson, deputy program manager at Exelis at Maxwell. “We’re excited about joining forces with our local community and making life better for one of our own.”
For Kirksey, the new house has more than just physical significance: “Where I live, they used to call it the Beverly Hills, but now the neighborhood is going down and people are leaving. People ask me why I want to stay here and I say this is my background, there is history here.”
Dee Moody, executive director of Rebuilding Together Central Alabama, says the focus is on rebuilding, not destroying.
“Our purpose is to revitalize neighborhoods and keep communities together,” Moody says. “Sometimes people have to choose between home repairs and medicine, or home repairs and food on the table, and our job is to make it easier for them.”
On Veterans Day, Three Powerful Stories of Service
This post is by Tracy Hoover, president of Points of Light.
This Veterans Day, I’d like to pay tribute to all veterans by telling you the story of three people – a boy who lost his dad on 9/11, an Army helicopter pilot and West Point graduate, and a Marine coping with PTSD. All three are making a difference through their service to America’s returning heroes.
At age 5, Sean Egan lost his father, a New York fire captain, on 9/11. Today he is a senior at Monsignor Farrell High School on Staten Island and founder of Hearing Our Heroes, an organization of 300 high school students who regularly visit and help veterans. They shovel snow in winter, do yard work in the summer, and come up with a surprise every now and then.
This summer, they surprised returning combat veteran Army Private Rasheed Akbar. During his deployment in Kuwait, Rasheed’s young daughter was diagnosed with cancer and underwent treatment. Like too many other military families must, the Akbars had to endure great sadness and hardship while separated. When Rasheed’s tour of duty was finally complete, Hearing Our Heroes honored his service and his family’s sacrifice with a celebration of his homecoming.
Erica Jeffries served in the Army for five years, flying helicopters to deliver supplies to the troops. Today she’s a diversity officer at Exelis, a defense and aerospace company in Reston, Va. Exelis partners with Points of Light and AmeriCorps to support the Community Blueprint and Veteran Leader Corps, national programs that coordinate and improve services for returning veterans and their families.
Erica is one of the Exelis Action Corps leaders who are dedicated to serving veterans and military families. Erica and her co-workers volunteer regularly with Fisher House, a nonprofit providing temporary housing for military families near hospitals where their loved ones are recovering from combat injuries.
“When I was on active duty, my mother was able to stay at Fisher House in Texas while I was in the hospital,” says Erica. “It was a wonderful gift and a blessing to our family.” Read more about Erica’s story here.
Heath Cobb, a former Marine who served in the Middle East, returned home with what he calls “the scars of war.” As he writes, “Rehab and mental institutions became commonplace. My often bizarre behavior was fueled by rage and I found myself in a vicious cycle of hate.”
An aunt suggested to Heath that he get involved in the community as a volunteer. The effort turned his life around. “I found the pride I felt when serving others was the same pride I felt by defending others,” he writes. “Suddenly, almost overnight, my sense of self was restored, my identity renewed.”
Today Heath is an AmeriCorps member and a member of Points of Light’s Veteran Leader Corps serving other veterans in Georgia. Read more about him here.
Today let us remember, thank and celebrate veterans. And let us honor their service and sacrifice through our actions. Please volunteer, advocate for and support veterans and their families. Click here to learn more.
I’ve thought a lot about what it means to live in poverty.
In 2001, when I was 18, I joined the Navy. I knew I wanted to go to college, and that the Navy would help me get there. I had never been out of the country. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Navy showed me the world.
When I left the Navy in 2005, I struggled to build a life for myself and, eventually, my two young daughters. I hit a point in my life where I was on the edge of my seat – a single mom trying to figure out how I was going to keep my life stable. I found myself going to the local food bank to keep food on the table, not knowing whether I was going to come home to my utilities being turned off – all while trying to maintain the welfare of my family, trying to keep a level head and trying to keep good grades in school.
I thought about everything that could go wrong, even though I knew that everything was going to be all right. I thought about the chances of my life spiraling into what I thought poverty was. With my military background and as a veteran, I would have never thought that finding a job would be so challenging or that I would be at a point in my life where I felt that I had nowhere to turn.
I came to Military Women in Need for help with my utility bills. The woman who helped me told me of an opportunity to use my experience to help others like me through the Veteran Leader Corps, an AmeriCorps program run by Points of Light with support from Exelis. Veterans put their lives on the line to serve this country and should not be subjected to hunger and homelessness. I knew that I wasn’t the only person who needed help, and I wanted to contribute to making a change.
I tell vets who face joblessness and homelessness something I tell myself: “Every day you get up, make sure you do something that’s going to help yourself today.” In my own life, if I look at the big picture it gets overwhelming. Sometimes you have to go little by little, day by day.
I joined the Veteran Leader Corps, which allows me to prepare vets for re-entering the workforce, because I wanted to help veterans get what they need to be successful in life. It is our duty as citizens to do what we can for the welfare of this country, of ourselves, and each other, so that no one ends up in poverty.
A Blackhawk Pilot and Now a Civilian, She Knows How to Serve Those Who Serve
As a veteran and a volunteer, Erica Jeffries is clear on what matters:
“To do good for others – it’s our purpose in life.”
On Veterans Day, Jeffries will be creating care packages for deployed troops with Exelis Action Corps, a program that encourages employees of the aerospace and defense company Exelis to serve veterans as volunteers.
Erica Jeffries participates in an
Exelis Action Corps project.
Jeffries, who is in charge of developing a diverse workforce for Exelis, appreciates the opportunity through Exelis Action Corps to participate in regular volunteer events that benefit veterans, including ongoing work with Fisher House. The nonprofit provides temporary housing for military families near hospitals where their loved ones are recovering from combat injury, illness or disease.
“The Fisher House is important to me, because when I was on active duty, my mother was able to stay at a Fisher House in Texas while I was in the hospital,” says Jeffries. “It was a wonderful gift and a blessing to our family.”
Jeffries recalls that one of her most gratifying volunteer moments with Exelis Action Corps came through Final Salute, an organization that provides housing to homeless female veterans in the Washington, D.C., area. The volunteers worked on landscaping, painting and otherwise making the house a comfortable living environment.
“The experience working with Final Salute was powerful because we knew we were preparing a home for veterans and their families,” Jeffries says.
Jeffries shares a kinship with the veterans she serves, having been in the military herself. She attended the United States Military Academy at West Point and served with the Army for five years, piloting Blackhawk helicopters to bring equipment to troops.
She’s also using her experience transitioning from military to civilian life to help others do the same, through a program she developed designed to teach leadership skills to veterans. The Leveraging Military Leadership program, in partnership with Points of Light and executive search firm Korn Ferry, launches in January and will became a signature part of Exelis Action Corps.
In the meantime, Jeffries – who directs a ministry for veterans at her church – says she is looking forward to doing good for others on Veterans Day.
Think Differently: Use Your Passions to Give Back
This post is by Tracy Hoover, Points of Light’s president.
Tracy Hoover
Giving back and helping others is not only a gift but an opportunity for personal growth and, let’s face it, a chance to feel good. As we head into the holiday season, why not personalize your approach and use your passions to inspire and help others?
You can give from the heart by:
Donating your skills and talents. The recession is in its fifth year and nonprofits are hurting. You can offer more than just a check or a few hours – you can give your expertise.
It’s called skills-based volunteering and it’s hot right now: 92 percent of nonprofits say they need more of it. So, think about what you’re good at – marketing, accounting, cooking, fixing computers, gardening, whatever – and offer it up to a nonprofit that can use it. You can help out in a computer lab or showcase your social media chops for an organization that can use it to raise awareness for their good works. You can help pull off events, prepare for an audit or recruit other volunteers.
And while you’re feeling good about helping others, you’re also polishing your skills — 91 percent of Fortune 500 human resources managers said providing pro bono knowledge and expertise can be an effective way to cultivate critical business and leadership skills.
If you’re a business owner, engaging your employees in skills-based volunteering can help build ties to your community, team spirit and job satisfaction. Find out more and join the pro bono movement at abillionpluschange.org.
Making service personal. Many nonprofits are born from difficult personal experiences — the death of a child, disease or personal tragedy, poverty. It seems we’re wired to help others avoid the tough things we’ve had to go through.
Take Risa Vetri Ferman, for example. Throughout her 19-year tenure with the Montgomery County (Pa.) District Attorney’s Office, Risa witnessed the horrific physical and emotional scars caused by child abuse. As District Attorney, she used her unique role in the community to create innovative solutions to protect children at risk. Determined to create change, Risa co-founded two local nonprofits that provide support for victims of child abuse: the Montgomery Child Advocacy Project, which provides pro bono legal services for abused kids and Mission Kids, a child advocacy center that facilitates the multidisciplinary team response to child abuse.
Supporting the work of others: One great way to bring your passion forward is to use all your personal power – your time, special skills, your social networks and personal influence to support and celebrate the good work that others are doing.
For eight years now, Points of Light has been honored to team up with L’Oréal Paris to celebrate 10 inspiring women making a difference in their communities. The personal stories of the 2013 Women of Worth are poignant and show that despite extreme adversity, women are committed to pursuing their passion and finding the beauty in giving back. These women are redefining volunteerism and as we talk about supporting others, it’s important to note that nearly 90 percent of the thousands of nominations this year were submitted by others.
You can support their work, and it will only take a minute. From Nov. 4 – 20, go to WomenofWorth.com or L’Oréal Paris’s Facebook and Twitter pages and vote for the finalist whose story means the most to you. L’Oréal Paris will give the Woman of Worth with the most votes an additional $25,000 for her cause.
It’s a simple way to give thanks for the work of others and kick off your own holiday giving season.
You Couldn’t Escape It
This post is by Tracy Hoover, Points of Light’s president.
Tracy Hoover
Though his feet splashed in about an inch of water, Principal Brian Walsh could see a water line two feet high marking the walls of Memorial School in Union Beach, N.J. Mud, mulch and who knows what else was scattered throughout the building. Everything was wet.
“We got used to the smell of that floodwater everywhere we went. You couldn’t escape it.”
Given the overwhelming damage to the building, the students were divided among four schools in three nearby districts. To Walsh it felt as if the Memorial School family was being split up.
It was a feeling shared in communities across the eastern seaboard as residents began the long process of putting their homes, businesses and neighborhoods back together in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. One year later, the rebuilding continues.
But thanks to the thousands of volunteers who showed up to help – and keep showing up, month after month – communities from New Jersey to Massachusetts are rebuilding, recovering and coming back together.
In the words of Principal Walsh, “It helped us become stronger than we were before the storm.”
Take a look at the Points of Light blog today to see how volunteers from Jersey Cares and Fidelity Investments helped bring Memorial School – and the Union Beach community – back together.
To find out how you can help your community be more disaster-resilient, visit www.goodandready.org. You’ll find resources that will help you and your neighbors create an emergency plan, build a preparedness kit and find a project or training near you.
Transforming a School, Rebuilding a Community After Hurricane Sandy
Though his feet splashed in about an inch of water, Principal Brian Walsh could see a water line two feet high marking the walls of Memorial School in Union Beach, N.J. Mud, mulch and who knows what else was scattered throughout the building. Everything was wet.
Students paint hopscotch squares at Union Beach, N.J.’s
Memorial School, which was damaged by Hurricane Sandy.
“The school smelled,” Walsh said, recalling a visit to the school after Hurricane Sandy battered it a year ago this week.
“We got used to the smell of that floodwater everywhere we went. You couldn’t escape it.”
Given the overwhelming damage to the building, the students were divided among four schools in three nearby districts. To Walsh it felt as if the Memorial School family was being split up.
As construction crews made repairs, Sherry Lynn Fazio of Jersey Cares came out to see how her group could help. The organization, part of HandsOn Network, coordinates volunteer opportunities to address critical community needs.
“The first time we visited Memorial School in Union Beach, it was filled with contractors and looked more like a construction site than a school,” she said. “There were areas we couldn’t walk through, no flooring, water-stained walls and Halloween decorations up in the hallways.”
A young volunteer shows his positive attitude.
Insurance would cover much of the physical damage caused by the storm, but it wouldn’t help rebuild the school community. Working with school administrators and Fidelity Investments, Jersey Cares came up with a plan: They would reunite the Memorial School family.
May 18, 2013 became School Transformation Day at Memorial School, marking the first event in a partnership between Fidelity Investments and the school. (The second was a school supply drive during the summer.) Transformation events are part of Fidelity Investments’ national partnership with HandsOn Network to help revitalize the learning environments and support the education needs of 12 schools across the United States.
On School Transformation Day, students, teachers, school staff and Fidelity Investments employees came from all over New Jersey to volunteer at Memorial School. Nearly 150 volunteers, including students from Rafael Cordero and Saint Peter’s University, in addition to members from the Hudson County Chamber of Commerce, participated in the event – contributing a total of 699 hours. (Watch a video of the activities here.)
In a single day, the participants upgraded two teachers’ lounges and created an iPad lounge for the media center. They painted multiple murals in the hallways, painted colorful games on the courtyard blacktop, created a mascot design on the school fencing and built several new seating areas outside.
Volunteers build furniture for Memorial School.
“The human spirit was evident and alive,” Walsh said. “It was incredible.”
Everything from the iPads to the murals sported the Memorial School blue and white. Just weeks before the school reopened, school spirit was coming alive throughout the building.
“We had students painting murals and staining benches and teachers helping with the furniture location throughout the (teachers’) lounges,” Fazio said. “We also had the mural artists sketch restaurants and local businesses in one of the Union Beach murals to really integrate the love of community that permeates the city.”
The school felt like home again.
“The nice thing about teaching in Union Beach is the sense of community; it has always been here,” said teacher Debbie Byrne. “Whenever there is something happening at the school it is a community event – from the Halloween parade to the eighth grade graduation. For us to not be in our school physically was hard. It was so nice to return.”
While the students of Memorial School spent the majority of the last school year in different schools, they’re back together now. Unified.
“Fidelity and Jersey Cares – they did things that took us above and beyond where we were,” Walsh said. “It helped us become stronger than we were before the storm.”
How Did You Spend Make A Difference Day? You Could Win $10,000 for Your Favorite Charity
Volunteers with HandsOn Broward in Florida make
dog treats for an animal shelter.
From Asheville, N.C., to Zanesville, Ohio, Saturday – Make A Difference Day – Americans committed to serving their communities. Each year on the fourth Saturday of October, millions of Americans take part in Make A Difference Day, the nation’s largest annual day of volunteering.
Did you participate in Make A Difference Day (#MDDAY13) this year? Post your photos and your story to www.makeadifferenceday.com by Nov. 18. Your favorite charity will get a chance to receive a $10,000 donation from Newman’s Own. If you’d rather enter by mail, download this brochure, which has participation details and a printable entry form.
And if you weren’t able to participate this year, mark your calendar for next year – Oct. 25!
