How much time will I be volunteering?

Holiday Sharing volunteers are expected to volunteer for 2-3 hours per week from October until the week before finals begin. Volunteers will sign up for weekly office hours during our first training session, and will be expected to volunteer with Madison House during those hours each week. In addition, we will be holding extra optional publicity events in the evenings. Our "main event," so to speak, is Distribution Day, which will take place the Saturday before finals. This day is also optional due to pending examinations, but we strongly encourage you to come. On Distribution Day, all the sponsored families come to Madison House to pick up their gift packages. It's a great way to see the fruits of your labor for the previous two months, and anybody who has been to a Distribution Day will agree, it's one of the best (if not a little tiring) days of your life.

Okay, what will I be doing?

Volunteers will be assigned different tasks each day and/or week. Tasks are divided into two categories: on-site and off-site.

On-site tasks:
At the beginning of the program, volunteering is mostly at Madison House when we have a strong push to recruit sponsors. We do this by calling sponsors from previous years, in addition to contacting several organizations at UVA by both phone and email. We then prepare our "Holiday Trees" that are placed around Grounds by cutting snowmen out of construction paper and decorating them. During this time volunteers are also awaiting any calls from potential sponsors and/or donors with questions about the program. Our last phase of the program is to inventory gift packages as they are brought to Madison House, which will take place the week after Thanksgiving. There is a standard for each package that must be met, and if packages are missing items, we use the donations to supplement the packages. Time pending, we will also have a project for volunteers to make small gifts for family members.

Off-site tasks:
Publicity is in full force at the start of the program. Volunteers can expect off-site tasks to include chalking sidewalks, putting up flyers on Grounds or on the Corner, or speaking to Corner business owners about our program. These tasks will be assigned during daytime "office hours," but we will also have "Publicity Nights" where we carpool to the Downtown Mall or to Barracks Road to ask local business owners to support the program by hanging our flyers in their stores or restaurants. These Publicity Nights are in the evenings and are optional, but they are a great way to meet other volunteers and program directors, increase your volunteer hours, and connect with the Charlottesville Community.

Later in the program, we begin placing the "Holiday Trees" around Grounds and on the Corner. During volunteer hours, one or two volunteers will be at each tree helping passersby sign up to donate a gift for Holiday Sharing. These gifts will supplement the gift packages for the families.

We will also hold some events just for volunteers to hang out, relax, and get to know each other in addition to your Program Directors.

One thing to keep in mind is that the tasks you will be performing with Holiday Sharing are not the most challenging in the world, which is great if you need a break from Organic Chemistry or writing 15 page papers. Holiday Sharing is a great chance to take a couple hours per week to make a huge difference in someone's life.