Last Thursday, eighteen volunteer leaders who recently completed the HandsOn Leadership course got together to kick off six amazing long-term projects!
Working in teams of three or four, these volunteers met with staff from the organization they’ll be working with over the next few months to get to know each other, learn more about the organizations and the communities they serve, and dive into planning their projects. This was the first time we’ve ever included an orientation as part of HandsOn Leadership, and it was a great opportunity for us to celebrate the beginning of a new round of projects, as well as to do some serious planning and preparation for the months ahead.
The HandsOn Leadership program includes a 12-hour training, after which participants are eligible to team up with one of our community partners to manage a project over the course of three to nine months.
These are the projects that kicked off last week:
- Planning, organizing, & marketing youth photography shows at venues around Seattle for Youth in Focus
- Designing and creating a facility for native species propagation and developing an accompanying educational program with Discovery Park Forest Stewards
- Developing a model for recruiting and managing teams of volunteer translators and editors for Vittana, which provides microfinance loans for higher education students internationally
- Creating a business plan to support the development of a cooking school for El Centro de la Raza
- Planning volunteer projects and recruiting skilled volunteers to renovate and refurbish the Wallingford Child Care Center
- Working with Magnuson Community Center to plan and implement environmental restoration projects that will serve as educational events for local youth and community members
We’re so excited to have such a diverse set of projects and to have a fantastic group of dedicated, enthusiastic volunteer leaders and partners! And if managing projects like these sounds like a great opportunity, you can join us for our next round of HandsOn Leadership, which starts January 25.
Or if your organization is interested in proposing a project, we’d love to hear from you!
