The Road to the Gulf is series of projects that helped to move the work and service from the 2010 National Conference on Volunteering and Service in New York to New Orleans, the site of the 2011 Conference. It’s a civic pathway, a mindset towards self sufficiency and sustainable action in communities. Attendees at projects across the country started their day by participating in a service project, then move to a classroom setting to discuss their hands-on experience and learn more about how to manage their own projects.

With HandsOn Greater Phoenix, Road to the Gulf brought together more than 2000 volunteers at twenty schools across Phoenix to help build a community that more people wanted to be a part of. Volunteers helped to refurbish libraries, create green spaces, give schools a fresh coat of paint to make them more inviting to students, restore playgrounds, and more.

In addition to helping to improve Phoenix’s schools, the Phoenix community built on ongoing recovery efforts in the gulf region by packing welcome kits for children in New Orleans who had to move into homeless or domestic violence shelters. The kits provided a few basics supplies for the children, and more importantly provide them with a few small reminders that it’s okay to play.

Greater DC Cares‘ Road to the Gulf project was part of their largest day of service during the year. It was one of over 150 service projects that worked to build a stronger DC. Their Road to the Gulf project focused on supporting Living Wages, which helps to build stronger citizens that are involved in their community.

Volunteers helped with some much needed repairs and updates, and a book mobile was onsite to collect books for children in the Gulf region.  Scholastic and their Be Big Campaign matched the books collected and made donations to 150 different sites in Washington, DC.

Chicago Cares helped to build a stronger community at Sayre Language Academy and helped to create a positive, safe and nurturing environment for all of its students. Volunteers worked together to paint canvas murals for the school, gave the science lab a complete makeover, and built bookshelves for the school.

In addition to the work volunteers did at the school, they also spent time putting together disaster preparedness kits that were then sent to neighbors in the gulf coast. You can read more about the project in a previous blog entry!

These projects, and others in Atlanta, Charlotte, San Francisco brought together community members to improve the condition of their neighborhoods while helping to build a community in New Orleans they may have never seen. These volunteers had an impact on their communities and on New Orleans through their service. The impact from these projects will continue to be felt in their communities and in New Orleans far into the future, not only because of the individual projects that were part of Road to the Gulf, but through the training of service leaders across the country that will continue to work to improve their communities.

For more on how the Road to the Gulf is directly affecting New Orleans, read today’s post on the NCVS blog. For a bigger picture view of Road to the Gulf events, read today’s post on the Points of Light blog.

Today’s post comes from Jessica Kirkwood, Vice President, Interactive Strategy for Points of Light Instutute.

Mother’s Day is fast approaching and I find myself thinking about my role as a mother.

Picking out a card for my own mother, now a mother myself, I have a deeper appreciation for the work of motherhood, the endless nose wiping, lunch packing, soccer shuttling and laundry folding.

While that work is important to keep the business of family afloat, I find myself focused on what it was my mom did that created my sense of ethics, of right and wrong.

How did she nurture my sense of justice and the call to service embedded in my DNA?

To truly honor her, not just on Mother’s Day, but every day, I want to pass these values on my own children.

I have spent most of my career working in volunteerism and am the first to admit that it’s not easy to find service projects that welcome young children. And even when they do, trying to schedule a service project around the chaos of family life can be discouraging.

So here’s a list of 10 steps to giving your mom the best Mother’s Day gift of all – grandchildren who will grow up to be concerned, engaged citizens of the world.

ONE:

Ask your kids what they’d like to do to make the world better.  What do they wish was different?  Maybe they want to make a difference for the environment, for other kids, for the homeless – what matters most is that they get asked the question.  Having these conversations with our children is as important and formative as the service experience itself.

TWO:

Based on your children’s interests, search for a project that will help them be the change they wish to see in the world.

Here are a few places to look:

HandsOn Network – HandsOn Network’s website allows you to search for an action center near you and then search their project database.  “Filter by project attribute” allows you to select projects appropriate for ages 5+, 10+, 12+, etc.  “Filter by impact areas” allows you to sort by environment, homelessness, etc.

All For Good – All for Good houses a larger collection of volunteer projects than HandsOn Network. At All for Good you can filter the search results by impact area, but not be age appropriateness, so you may have to vet the opportunities a bit further.

VolunteerMatch – VolunteerMatch’s advanced search allows you to enter a lot of different criteria to find a project.  You can filter by “kids” and “teens” as well.

THREE:

Think of everything in advance.  (But we already do this, right?  Raise your hand if you have a purse full of snacks.)

Ask the project coordinator about age appropriateness, safety, dress and training.

FOUR:

Try it once before making a long term family commitment.  (I so wish I had done this before committing to two kids in soccer at the same time!)

FIVE:

At the project, model awesome volunteer behavior.  Be prompt, courteous & eager to help.

SIX:

During the project, praise & encourage little ones’ “big” efforts!

SEVEN:

After the project, talk about how things went – swap thoughts & stories.

EIGHT:

Celebrate! What a great achievement! Scrapbook memories & keep a volunteer calendar.

NINE:

Ready for more? Brainstorm ideas together!

TEN:

Invite other friends and families along next time!

Happy Mother’s Day!

Today’s post comes from Yuan YanBin, and Intern with HandsOn Shanghai.

On April 15th, as part of Global Youth Service Day, a group of student volunteers from Shanghai University come to Huang Pu Elderly Care Center (HPECC).

Regardless of the hot weather, volunteers traveled for over an hour on the metro to get HPECC. The volunteers, who are in their freshman and sophomore year, told me that they are from different provinces in China and that living in another city sometimes makes them feel homesick. They said that because they’re so far away from home, they can rarely visit and chat with their own grandma and grandpa, so volunteering to be with the elderly helps them feel better about not being at home and makes them feel like they are needed.

Considering that the people in this elderly center are Shanghainese, the volunteers first played Zhou Libo’s (a Shanghai stand-up comedian) famous shtick video for them to watch, which resulted in bursts of laughter. Then the volunteers sang two old songs to remind them of their youth days, which they happily sang along to. They also read famous poems from the 1950s that described the conditions of the time and reminded them of that glorious time in the past.

Moreover, the students taught them the Finger Exercises, encouraging them to take care of themselves, do more exercises, and have a healthier life.

Before leaving, students advised them and told them caring things, like “although the temperature is getting high, don’t take off your clothes immediately because the Shanghai weather can change quickly,” “remember to be happy everyday”, and “eat more fruits and avoid oily food.”

In the end, volunteers had to say goodbye to the elderly. During this short period of one hour, the volunteers filled the elderly lives with color and joy, and made their lives at HPECC more fun. With the day’s activities, the volunteers gained a sense of belonging and spent a meaningful day with the elderly that kept a smile on all of their faces for the rest of the day. This was not the first time that volunteers from SU visited the HPECC and brought laughter and happiness to their lives and it will certainly not be their last!