My son came home from college to visit for a couple of weeks. He had just moved into a new apartment in Chicago, so I was gathering things around the house that he might need. As I was rummaging through my kitchen stuff, I came across a microwave steamer by Pampered Chef which I use all the time – it is terribly convenient and quick! I couldn’t bear to give him mine, so I called my cousins wife, MJ, who had sold it to me and asked if she could get me another one. As we were talking, she told me that she saw my picture on Facebook in the posting about Volunteer West Virginia’s Volunteer Day at the Ball Park.
She asked about the event and our organization. In the course of our conversation, I discovered that the organization she works with, Adventure Pursuit, uses an AmeriCorps Member. Her organization is a community-based, all volunteer non-profit group which relies mostly on grant funding. Their current funding is about to run out and MJ said she needs to start writing some new grant proposals, but has little experience in grant writing. I told her to look no further! We are the place to help out! We offer a 3-day Grant Writing Workshop twice a year, AND we hold an annual Volunteer Conference in July, which offers a variety of workshops around volunteerism, community service, service-learning and disaster preparedness. Our conference this year is July 14, 15, & 16 at the Charleston Civic Center.
She was so excited and wanted to learn more. I told her I would put her organization on our mailing list and would give her one of our conference brochures. Since MJ and her family are coming in to visit over the Memorial Day weekend, I will give her the brochure and share with her other ways in which our organization can help to support her volunteer efforts. It was such a good feeling to be able to connect with someone I’ve known for a long time, in a different way, and to offer meaningful assistance. It is nice to know that the work we do has the potential to not only “strengthen communities” in the abstract , but to actually help those we know.