During the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for volunteers has never been greater. Many volunteers are finding ways to make a difference for people in need, even as many of us stay home.
While so much has changed, one thing hasn’t: our gratitude and appreciation for the folks who give their time and energy to serve their communities. Some recent and inspiring examples include:
Thank a Healthcare Worker. United Way Worldwide created a tutorial for volunteers to make a thank you video that we’ll share with healthcare workers, who put themselves in high-risk situations to keep our communities healthy. Dell has signed on to this project and is enlisting its employee volunteers so that healthcare workers will receive videos of appreciation.
Read Aloud. Education and social interactions have been radically altered in the past two months for everyone, including children. To help children maintain their literacy skills, United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut is encouraging volunteers to record themselves reading age appropriate books, which they will provide to educators who will share with their students.
Teacher Thank-a-Thon. Trident United Way (Charleston, South Carolina) is showing teachers how valued they are in the community by hosting a Teacher Thank-A-Thon, powered by volunteers. United Way will deliver Thank You cards to teachers throughout the area during Teacher Appreciation Week (May 6-10) that share volunteers’ reflections of how teachers impacted their life or the life of their school-aged child.
Notes of Encouragement. More and more companies are working with United Way to help. Both AT&T and DraftKings employees are using an online note-writing platform to author notes of encouragement that United Way will deliver to various audiences, including veterans, isolated seniors and medical personnel, to name a few.
What can you do? The effort to thank volunteers is open to everyone. You can help too. We invite you to make a thank you video for volunteers in your community. Click here for details.