Children Volunteering, Volunteer from Home, and Leadership Changes | Track It Forward

Children Volunteering, Volunteer from Home, and Leadership Changes

Written by Jordan Galerkin

Weekly Recap from Facebook Icons

Recap for November 22nd - November 29th

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the Facebook community this past week! 

Children Volunteering & Volunteer from Home

It’s great to see children get into the spirit of volunteering, however it’s not always practical to have them volunteer onsite or in-person due to staffing, scheduling, or type of volunteer work. Thankfully, our community has shared some engaging ways children can volunteer their time and energy from home!

Good morning! I am the volunteer coordinator for an animal
shelter. I get hundreds and hundreds of inquiries from parents about their children volunteering. It’s impossible to accomodate them all so really trying to encourage virtual volunteering projects. Curious if anyone has a resource page for your website you’d be willing to share? I send them links showing different enrichment toys they can make (we are dogs and cats only), but would love to have a whole page dedicated to this. 
Also, I think I’ve asked this before but if anyone has any canine and feline enrichment boards listing daily/hourly schedules for mental and physical enrichment I would be so grateful to see those as well!

Comments from the group

  • “Check out habitatcltregion.org ...and look at 'Ways to Help from Home'.” (Opportunities listed include gift-making, shopping, and writing cards or letters)

  • “One of the things our local [animal] shelter can always use is handmade toys or materials that would otherwise be thrown away. One local shelter used to make [cat] toys out of corks & feathers, for example.

Check out all of the comments here!

Leadership Changes and Volunteers

It can be difficult for organizations and their volunteers when there are changes in leadership. Some volunteers may feel uncertain about reporting to a new volunteer manager, and may want to leave as well. It’s important to understand where these volunteers are coming from and see if there are other underlying issues, so communication is key in this situation.

One of our managers in a rural community left the organization, not entirely on her own. Her group of volunteers a very upset and have said that unless the organization allows the manager to return, they will leave. Has anyone had anything similar happen at their organization? How did you handle it?

Comments from the group

  • “...They may want to have a talk with the volunteers and find out what the underlying issue is.”

  • With a change in leadership, all you can do is make efforts to recruit those current volunteers as quickly as possible. Get to know them, find out what drives them to volunteer, then figure out how to deliver that to them.

  • “We asked them to remember the reason they are here and move forward with us. When the dust settled those who stayed did so for the right reasons and we noticed a positive culture shift.”

Add your own thoughts here!