Blood Drive Success!

Thanks to everyone who gave blood at our Red Cross Blood Drive last Wednesday, October 14th.

Thanks to your efforts, we were able to provide 26 usable donations to the Red Cross!

Yoplait Lids - Save Lids to Save Lives

This week we are mailing 44 Yoplait lids to the Save Lids to Save Lives campaign sponsoring Susan G. Komen for the Cure. For each lid, Yoplait donates ten cents to the fund, with a guaranteed gift of $500,000.
Learn more at http://www.yoplait.com/slsl/, and keep washing your Yoplait lids and placing them in the big envelope on the board in the Grad Lounge.

First Year Representative Voting

CONGRATULATIONS to our two First Year Representative Nominees! Please see their campaign statements below:

Susanna Foxworthy: Hi, I would love to be your first year rep for START! As the first year representative, I would take an active role in shadowing the co-presidents of START for next year. I would also look for and promote volunteer activities and other creative ways for us to get involved in the community. Since we're all involved in other organizations and, of course, classes, I'd concentrate on finding a balance of volunteer opportunities that are one time commitments (i.e. cookie decorating at a nursing home during the holidays, maybe!) and also others that require greater time commitments. This year, I have participated in a couple of events I learned about from START including the service project during orientation week and tutoring once a week at the Pinnacle School, and I am excited for the future events like caroling and forming a Homeward Bound team. Thank you for your vote!

Hey fellow START members! My name is Lindsay Walker and I would love the opportunity to be your first year representative. I am a MPA student concentrating in nonprofit management and just like all of you; I have a strong belief in serving my community and helping those around me in any way that I can. I have volunteered and worked for numerous charitable organizations including the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Phoenix Rescue Mission, where I helped organize and implement seasonal food drives and the Fiesta Bowl’s Hole-In-One Golf Tournament which raises money for families of firefighters and police officers who have lost their lives in the line of duty. I also spent some time working in the communications department of the Make-A-Wish Foundation where I helped convey the organization’s mission statement and objectives. If chosen as START’s first year representative, I will commit to bringing new ideas to the table, sharing all of your thoughts and feedback with the association and carrying on my passion for serving the community in which we all live. Thanks everybody!

Please send your vote to speastart@gmail.com by NOON this Friday (October 16^th). We will announce the new first year rep once all votes are tallied.

Free Hotel Stay for Volunteer Service

Give A Day, Get A Night

Sage Supports Volunteerism

Give 8 hours of community service and Get a complimentary night stay or 50% discount on hotel rooms at all 53 Sage hotels across the country.

Offer ends March 31, 2010

The Details:

Complete 8 hours of volunteer service to a registered 501(c)3 non profit organization by March 29, 2010 to qualify to receive 50% off the published room rate -- or maybe a complimentary night (limited availability).

For more information: click here.

City of Bloomington Volunteer Network

If you are interested in volunteering in a particular sector, but can't seem to find info, check out:

City of Bloomington Volunteer Network

401 N. Morton St. Suite 260
Bloomington, IN 47404
(812) 349-3433
volunteer@bloomington.in.gov
www.bloomington.in.gov/volunteer

And, as always, feel free to e-mail speastart@gmail.com if you have any specific questions!

Bloomington Multicultural Expo

Dear Civic Engagement Stakeholder members,

The Bloomington Multicultural Expo (BME) needs our help! On Saturday, October 10th of this year, four festivals will come together to create a new, exhilarating “Expo” experience! The I.U. Moon Festival, Soul Food Festival, Festival Latino and International Village will integrate their activities at Bryan Park from 11am to 4pm, and by doing so, they are expecting well over 1,000 participants! Students always play an integral role as festival participants but this year we hope that our student volunteers can help, too!

This volunteer opportunity seems perfect for students and provides a wonderful educational experience. I am hoping we can help support BME by funneling some of our student volunteers to their Expo during the event day. I serve the BME planning committee and, as a communication bridge between our group and theirs, I would like to propose a possible system for recruiting Expo volunteers from our Stakeholder group. See what you think:

1. What if four Stakeholder members each signed up to have their I.U. volunteer program support one, individual festival with their student volunteers? That person would then be able to recruit their student volunteers most easily, and help to fill their 11am to 5pm volunteer needs.

2. Each festival site at Bryan Park will have unique volunteer needs – some need many and some need few; each has just now come up with their final volunteer numbers and volunteer job descriptions;

3. Student Volunteer shifts will be in 2 hour slots from 11am to 5pm;
SO – are there 4-5 of you who are willing to sign up your students from your volunteer program to help with this year’s Bloomington Multicultural Expo?!
If so, here are the totals that they will need. (Please note that community volunteers will also participate in this event and might contribute to these numbers. But, the more student volunteers they receive, the easier this will make their total recruitment effort!)
Let me know the festival site for which you would like your volunteer program to sign up:

Moon Festival – 24 volunteers
Latino Festival – 4
Soul Food Festival – 35
International Village – 0
Expo Children’s Activities – 8
Misc. – photographer, clean-up, etc.

We can talk more about the specifics of this at our next Stakeholder’s meeting on September 23rd but I would love it if you could tentatively provide sign up feedback now so that BME knows how IU student volunteers might be contributing.

Email speastart@gmail.com if you are interested in volunteering for this event!

Red Cross Basic Aid Training for Kids

Basic Aid Training

Monroe County Chapter American Red Cross

Contact: EJ Chung, eunchung84@gmail.com

We are looking for student volunteer teachers to teach this program to 519 4th graders in Monroe County.

The BAT program will teach children emergency response skills, rescue breathing and ways to prevent and care for choking, wounds, nosebleeds, falls and animal bites.

We are targeting 7 schools and we are going to teach them 6 health related topics. And each unit is about an hour long.

We will provide teaching materials and training for volunteers, and guest speakers from different organizations like Bloomington Hospital and Bloomington Fire Department.

The BAT program will start in the spring semester of 2009/2010 academic year, and this program will provide student volunteer teachers to gain teaching experience, skills to manage a whole classroom, expand public speaking skills, develop new job skills and build professional contact network for their future.

If you have any questions or more information, please let me know!

Community Garden Volunteering

Bloomington Community Gardens Program is looking for volunteers to help with maintenance. The program offers organic plots, as well as financial aid for people who need help to cover the cost of renting a plot. Groups of 5-25 can volunteer in 3-4 hour shifts at one of the two community gardens. Here are the links to the two gardens:

Willie Streeter CommunityGardens: http://bloomington.in.gov/documents/viewDocument.php?document_id=212
Crestmont Community Gardens: http://bloomington.in.gov/documents/viewDocument.php?document_id=211

If this sounds like something you are interested in, please let START know (speastart@gmail.com), or you can directly contact Natalie at nmmesser@indiana.edu. Once we receive enough interest, Natalie will set up a shift on a Saturday or Sunday and then hopefully make regular arrangements for students who are interested and available.

SPRING 2010 START EVENTS

SPRING 2010

January
17th Soiree for Service (joint event with GSA)
18th Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Service Day

February
1-5th Election Week

March
TBA Rally for Service Week

April
TBA Blood Drive

FALL 2009 START EVENTS

FALL 2009
August
27th First Year Orientation Service Day and lunch event

September
19th United Way “Day of Action”
20th United Way Campaign Concert at Buskirk-Chumley Theater
26th Hoosiers Outrun Cancer (Join the START/GSA Team!)

October
14th Red Cross Blood Drive

November
16-20th Hoosier Hills Food Drive (week-long event)

December
7-11th Salvation Army Angel Tree
12th Salvation Army Christmas Caroling