April is National Volunteer Month and here at United Way, we know that Volunteers make the world go ’round!

For so many nonprofits, volunteers are the beating heart of our work and make many of our local nonprofit’s missions possible. This month, we want to sing it from the hilltops, so we’re hosting a virtual Volunteer Share!

We’d like your help – get in on the action by printing the “I volunteer because…” sign (link below) and posting a photo of yourself on Facebook page and sharing it on yours and tagging Green Mountain United Way.

How it works:

1. Print the sign
2. Write in why you volunteer! (could be as simple as “because it makes me happy!” or as complicated as you like, just make it legible! There is a word doc in case typing is easier.)
3. Take a selfie or have someone take your photo holding the sign
4. Post it on your Facebook page and tag Green Mountain United Way and then post it on our Facebook page (better yet, also tag the organization you volunteer for!) 
5. Email it to me and we’ll post it on our page and here on this blog post!

Downloads

• PDF “I volunteer because…”
• Word Doc “I volunteer because…”

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On a recent, crisp, cold January morning, over 20 nonprofits were represented in Norwich University’s Kreitzberg Library’s Multi-Purpose room for Green Mountain United Way and Norwich University’s Volunteer Coordinator Panel and Networking event. Carrie Stahler of Green Mountain United Way facilitated a discussion by panelists Greg McGrath from Norwich University, Erin Regan from The American Cancer Society and Patty Connor from Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice to discuss volunteer recruitment, placement, retention, and management from a variety of viewpoints.

Greg organizes campus events and activities throughout the school year working with various student groups to accomplish his work. Greg brought a studied volunteer management perspective and spoke about creating systems that benefit your organization and a volunteer’s interests. Erin’s focus is on working with groups of volunteers regionally to operate the Relay for Life events in Central Vermont and Caledonia County. Erin’s input helped us all learn more about successful outreach and relationship building, working with groups and committees, and she really lit up when talking about how to use social media to reach and communicate with volunteers. Patty brought us the perspective of a smaller nonprofit organization and covered how to engage volunteers in various tasks, how to work with departments who use volunteers to ensure volunteers and staff are working well together.

Nonprofits were engaged and had a lot of general and specific questions that informed the conversation. Nicole Didomenico from Norwich University’s Center for Civic Engagement hosted the event and shared her experience and ways that Norwich students could help organizations meet their volunteer needs and what limitations faced students that nonprofits should be aware of.

Green Mountain United Way holds volunteer coordinator meetings quarterly alternating between Central Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom. The next meeting will take place in the Northeast Kingdom in April. To get an invitation, join our mailing list by emailing volunteer@gmunitedway.org.

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The Certified Trainers at Northeast Kingdom Human Services are holding a QPR gatekeeper training for community members:

Thursday, January 31, 2019 10am to noon at NKHS in Derby, Vermont

or

Wednesday, February 6, 2019 from 1:30 pm – 3:30pm at NKHS offices on Portland Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont

To register contact Ruth Marquette at rmarquette@nkhs.net or call 802-334-6744 x 2140

For all details see the flyer:

NKHS.QPR.CommunityTrainingFlyer.Jan-Feb2019

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Northfield Promise Community Celebrates the Opening of New Playground

Northfield, Vermont – October 10, 2018

Friday the Northfield Promise Community celebrated the culmination of years of hard work and hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of planning, meeting, and physical labor at the new playground off of Burnham Road in Northfield Falls. This project began two years ago as part of the State of Vermont’s Promise Community initiative where the community came together to apply for a grant to improve kindergarten readiness for children in the Northfield Community. Through the Promise Community initiative each group is free to work together to come up with the solution that best fits their community. Through a series of community gatherings and community-led conversations, the Northfield Promise Community determined that there was a lack in safe, accessible play spaces for young children and they set about finding a location and planning a playground. With the partnership and support of Green Mountain United Way, the town of Northfield, the school district, and many, many community members, this plan and playground began to take shape.

The Northfield Promise Community hired local landscape designer and Northfield parent Bonnie Kirn Donahue to act as project manager and with Landscape Structures to purchase and lead the community in the installation of the major elements for the playground as part of the “community build” process. The work took place over the course of 5 days. Volunteers and community members showed up, brought tools, tractors, food and energy to see the project through to completion. Norwich University cadets volunteered each day alongside parents, community members, and organizers.

The playground is geared toward ages 0-6, and is filled with multi-sensory experiences such as a playhouse and mud kitchen for imaginary play, musical instruments, blueberry bushes, rock garden, walking track, pretend car, friendship swing, and more. The play space is enclosed by a fence and is ready for the children and families in our community to enjoy it!

Friday, September 28^th at 4pm the community kicked off the grand opening with a popsicle party and ribbon cutting attended by many families, children, and community members eager to celebrate the completion of this exciting community project.

The playground is located near the baseball fields off of Burnham Road in Northfield Falls and everyone with young children is encouraged to go and enjoy the result of this incredible community effort.

About the Northfield Promise Community:

The Northfield Promise Community was formed in 2016 as a result of the State of Vermont’s Promise Community Initiative which grants communities funds to be used to help the children within that community ages 0-5 kindergarten ready. The Northfield Promise Community was made up entirely of volunteer community members, parents, and town leaders who worked to gather the community’s vision and turn it into actionable projects. The Northfield Promise Community will also be working on a second installation at the Brown Public Library in Northfield as part of this project.

About Green Mountain United Way:  Green Mountain United Way is a Vermont not-for-profit organization in operation since 1976.  They work to improve the health, education and financial stability of every person in every community in Caledonia, Essex, Orange, Orleans and Washington Counties by mobilizing the caring power of communities around our region to advance the common good. No other single organization has the scope and influence to bring together human service agencies, government, businesses, private foundations and dedicated volunteers around a common vision of creating maximum impact and achieving long-lasting results.

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Friends, the short answer is, we don’t know how you’ll be impacted by the changes to tax laws at the federal level. If you used to itemize your deductions, you may still be able to do that, but our suggestion is to talk to your tax preparer or financial planner. Those who used to itemize but will no longer do that will see the most impact.

However, this is a bit of sunlight for community philanthropy thanks to our Vermont legislators. The State of Vermont passed a new tax law last year allowing 5% of up to $20,000 in eligible charitable contributions to be deductible – there’s a new spot on the Vermont State Tax forms for them and the Tax Department is very eager to get the word out and to help support the nonprofit sector with this tax credit. Take a look at the informative video they’ve created to help Vermonters understand this new tax credit. Please let them know if you have questions, they’ve been very helpful and we’d like all of the Vermonters who are eligible to take advantage of this! Help us spread the word – share this video!

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