Volunteer Appreciation Week

by Audrey Cloutier-Lord

Audrey Cloutier-Lord, Volunteer Coordinator

During National Volunteer Week
We Celebrated the Volunteers of Beacon of Hope!

Volunteers are of a huge importance to nonprofit organizations. They are people who rally together for a cause they have at heart. Their passion and dedication are genuine. The time and energy they give is precious and leads to many great benefits for the community.

Our volunteers bring passion, credibility, expertise, experience as well as refreshed energy, perspectives, and new ideas to our beautiful organization. They give excellent service to the community and allow the entire team to reach more people in need!

Our most active volunteers: Megan, Phyllis, Jo Ellen, Dulce, Jennifer, Janet, Bidisha, Andre, Samantha and Hilina; are part of our family, and we would not be the same without them!

Now, I would like to go over their accomplishment with you!

• Megan is the volunteer who has been with us the longest. She started when we opened our doors to the community back in 2009. In total, she has given us 1260 hours!
• Lauren started a couple of months ago, on February 24th. She has already given 55.5 hours.
• Phyllis started on March 16th and has given 17.5 hours.
• Jo Ellen, on March 29th and she gave us 7 hours of her time – including helping us get ready for our Denim Day Event!
• Dulce started on March 28th and has already given us 45 hours.
• Jennifer has given us 20 hours since March 29th.
• Janet who started at the beginning of the month, on April 7th, has given us 22 hours.
• Bidisha started just last week and has given us 3.5 hours.
• Andre, who is interning with us, started on April 18th and has already given us 18 hours.
• Samantha and Hilina who are no longer with us on a regular basis have both given us a lot during the year of 2016. Respectively, they have given us 168 and 110 hours!

If we do a cumulative of the hours solely for 2017, as of April 26, we are already at 200.5 hours! We went from 1 active volunteer to 9 – which is an 800% increase!

Please join me in recognizing our volunteers and their passion to our mission, community and everyone we serve. Wherever you are reading this from, let’s give them a round of applause.

---