These “Action Days” will replace both the United Way Day of Action (held in June) and the United Way Day of Caring (held in September).
We have seen the revamp of these 2 days to be necessary to further engage, as well as make it more convenient for companies, organizations, and businesses to become involved in the work of the United Way of the Laurel Highlands through Volunteering.
We would love to include you in our Volunteering work, and subsequently join forces in building and customizing a “United Way Action Day” for you!
In doing so, we would look for a few initial plans to be set in place:
1. A developed idea of supporting the community via volunteer work.
- This could be anything from cleaning a park, helping one of our partner agencies, renewing a community garden, etc. (Anything that would be considered as “Volunteering As a Large Group of 10+ people or more)
2. Development of a Focus to help an agency who is serving the residents of the community.
- You can usually form this focus through a company-wide survey gathering the overall want to help the community in a particular area.
- This could be through a community cleanup, serving at a food pantry, teaching community members about financial stability, etc. (Generally something that strengthens, maintains, or promotes sustainability or resiliency of community residents via a community organization.
3. Gather your volunteer group.
- Ideally, we would like 10+ more volunteers to volunteer their time toward a project to make a significant impact within the community.
- You would gather your group of volunteers to be present on the chosen “Action Day” to provide their goodwill to the community during a set amount of hours. (5+ hours of volunteering would be encouraged)
4. We would work to coordinate with you all of these aspects, as well as make connections to an agency where you would place focus on volunteering at or with.
5. Choose a single date that is convenient for your company between Late May and the End of October.
- This date should be within a date range where your organization is not at a peek busy time of the year.
6. We will work with you to solidify the date and time with the agency or organization that you will volunteer at or with.
7. I will take care of creating an online portal via our Get Connected site for both you and volunteers from your company to utilize for the Action Day.
I know this may seem like a lot, but on our end, we will take care of most of the “heavy lifting” involved with gathering a specific need that matches your company’s want to provide goodwill within the community.
A few suggested steps to take on your end would be:
1. A company survey of volunteering (What would they like to achieve as a group, and is there a specific agency that sits close to home for you all)
2. Choose a date for your “Action Day” (This should be a date between Late May and the End of October)
From there, we will work with to find an agency within either Cambria or Somerset Counties or both, that can benefit from the volunteer work of your business.
Please contact Admin@UWLaurel.org, to plan or schedule your company or organizations' own Action Day!