Posts Tagged ‘Super Bowl’

6 Ways Volunteers are making the Super Bowl awesome!

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

While the Super Bowl is a time to gather around the television with your friends and family to cheer on your favorite team, it is also an awesome time to serve your community. Indianapolis residents have welcomed the Super Bowl with plenty of cheer and grandeur, but they are also pretty excited to host the amazing Super Bowl volunteers who will help to make this year’s Super Bowl a success!

  1. Super Baskets of Hope: Dedicated to delivering 7,000 baskets of hope to hospitalized children, the Super Baskets of Hope is the first project by a Super Bowl host city to reach across the country. Nearly 1,000 volunteers showed up to Bankers Life Field house in Indianapolis this Monday to create baskets of hope. Former Indianapolis Colts coach and proud spokesman for the organization, Tony Dungy, knew Indianapolis would take the legacy and service aspect of the game seriously.
  2. Volunteers knitted scarves for Super Bowl Volunteers! Burrr!!! Indianapolis can be brutal in January! And according to the TIME.com news feed, Indianapolis residents welcomed the 8,000 Super Bowl Volunteers by knitting 13,000 scarves to keep volunteers warm during their stay in Indianapolis. To get into the knitting spirit, Indiana residents participated in “knit-ins” at libraries, cafes and shops across the state. Thanks to the unique and creative blue-and-white scarves, Super Bowl volunteers are highly recognizable. 
  3. One Super Bowl attendee reported the amazing help volunteers provided him when simply asking for directions. Before joining the festivities, volunteers provided him with information about what time the park-and-ride services began, directions to the entrances, and helped him to navigate through security.
  4. Other volunteers are helping to work events like the “NFL Experience,” a family fun event where people of all ages and physical ability can feel like they’re playing in a professional game. For the “NFL Experience” volunteers are needed to point families to their desired activity, the restrooms, concessions, and pick up trash, etc.
  5. Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution (S.O.A.P.) Volunteers: about 150 volunteers for S.O.A.P. are heading to Indiana before the event, not to tailgate, but to pass out soap at Indianapolis motels. Each bar of soap will have a label on it with phrases like “Are you being threatened?” or “Are you witnessing young girls being prostituted?” The soap provides the number for a human trafficking hotline so that those at the hotel, or young girls who are being trafficked, will see it and can call for help.
  6. Join the NFL and United Way’s Play 60 campaign to fight child obesity! Sometimes what is really needed is one person to get things started and organized. Help kids in your community increase their physical activity and eat more healthful foods. Use your talents to motivate kids to move more and eat better. Soon, kids in a class, neighborhood or community are getting fit together. 

Back home there are ways you too can serve your community during the Super Bowl. One volunteer said they plan on hosting a Super Bowl party for the youth at their church. You can also donate money to organizations such as the Souper Bowl, an organization dedicated to fighting hunger.  Whether they are advocating a specific cause or pointing people in the right direction, volunteers are everywhere in Indianapolis serving their community and making the Super Bowl awesome!

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Tags: Indiana, Indianapolis, National Football League Experience, NFL,
Posted in Events, Family Volunteering, Just for Fun | No Comments »

Make a Play to Fight Hunger

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012

Ready…Set…Volunteer! This Sunday, February 5 is every American’s favorite day SUPER BOWL SUNDAY!!! Woohoo hear the crowds roar with excitement! Who can resist watching funny commercials, seeing Madonna perform for the halftime show, seeing your favorite teams fight to the death, eating yummy food, and just participating in some good ol’ American fun!

Here at HandsOn Network we are not only excited about the opportunity to hang out with friends and family while watching the greatest sports event of the year, but also for the opportunity to make a party out of a service event. What do you mean, you may be wondering to yourself? You got me all hyped up about a day of good ol’ day of American fun to then have the obligation to volunteer?

Wrong, turning your Super Bowl party into a service project is just as easy as predicting that you will see a million Doritos commercials on Sunday.

So how does this happen, how can I make my day of fun into a day of service as well? Easy, we have a list full of simple fun ways to make service a good call rather than a penalty to your excitement! Come on put that plate of chicken wings down and check out our service ideas below:

  1. Make a substitution: So we all know that eating fatty American foods is just part of the Super Bowl tradition. While this is still an option to your event planning, why not add a little twist to the mix? Ask guests to bring a couple canned foods to your party that can be donated to your local food bank. It is a win-win situation unlike Billy Cundiff, of the Baltimore Ravens who missed the winning field goal game tying which would have knocked the Patriots out of Super Bowl contention. You win because you get to hang out with your friends while  serving your community. Your local food bank wins because their shelves are stocked thanks to your wonderful donation!
  2. Team up: Add a little competition to your Super Bowl event. Compete with your neighbors (I mean it would not be the Super Bowl without a little competition, right?). Tell your neighbors about your idea to fight hunger for the Super Bowl and encourage them to do the same. Compose cheers, make signs, wear uniforms, etc. Whoever collects the most food gets the trophy. Competition adds a fun aspect to the service initiative because it keeps players’ adrenaline going! Isn’t that why the most of us watch the Super Bowl in the first place?
  3. Draft: While you and your community is in the midst of this great hunger competition make a pact to fight hunger year round. With all the fun you are going to have it will not be hard to recruit people for your hunger team! You can make this happen through making a donation calendar, assigning a bin to be stored in a local area for donations, writing up a schedule to define who will take donations to the food bank each month, etc. Just remember communication is key to any successful team!
  4. Celebrate your victory: After all this fierce hunger game play, you and your teammates are allowed to take pleasure in your hard work. Enjoy the game, eat great food, have fun with your friends. What is the point of competition if you cannot celebrate it at the end?

After the holiday hype, food banks tend to run low on supplies. By making your Sunday Super Bowl party into a “Fight Hunger” service project you will help this reality become a fact of the past!

Organizations such as Souper Bowl of Caring are great ways that you can get your event started, as well. Souper Bowl of Caring is a youth driven organization that actively fights hunger around Super Bowl time. They go around in their communities collecting money and food donations in a soup pan. They will donate 100% of their proceeds to a local hunger relief organization of their choice. Last year, more than $9.5 million dollars worth of donations were collected by youth volunteers across the nation. Learn more by visiting Souper Bowl of Caring’s website where you can register to participate and find many resources to get involved in this great cause.

Still hungry for more? Our friends at generationOn also have a huge resource database for kids, parents, and teachers to get involved in the hunger fight!

So put your game face on this Sunday and make the play to fight hunger for your community members! You will reap the benefits and go home with the gold thanks to your pledge to end hunger in 2012!

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Posted in Events, Family Volunteering, Fundraising & Development, Neighboring, Volunteering | 5 Comments »