Take Action Round Up: October 29

I've decided to start a new thing here; about once a week I'm going to post all the easy take action things that you can do from your computer to help end poverty/hunger/homelessness. This is the easiest volunteering you can do.

• From 2003 to 2007, the number of New York City households with children that had trouble affording enough food grew by 41%, according to a recent study published by the Food Bank for New York City. The study found that, in 2007, 45% of all City families with children were not always able to afford enough food.
  Write to congress to End Child Hunger


• Jasmin Tragasa, who lives in Australia, is managing consultant and social media advocate at IBM with a background in new media and design. She's asking women around the world to contribute a sentence, just one sentence, on the theme of "A Women's Investment." Contribute one sentence for a social media fundraising project she's leading to support female entrepreneurs in the Philippines.
  Post your sentence and image at A Woman's Investment or
  see slides already submitted
  
  
• Buying holiday presents on the online? Register at GoodShop.com ; 30% of any purchase you make from that site will go to the non-profit of your choice! The same goes for GoodSearch.com ; if you use their search engine to search for anything, GoodSearch will donate to the cause of your choice! (Met Council is on both!)
  

Reminder: Resume Review Volunteers

Just a quick reminder!
We still need volunteers for the Home Attendant student's Resume Review on Monday the 27th from 5 to 6pm!

Call or email me at 212.453.9653 or ahowe@metcouncil.org!

Make a Difference Day

USA Weekend and Newman's Own are sponsoring the 18th Annual Make a Difference Day this Saturday, October 25th. Make A Difference Day is the largest national day of helping others; a celebration of neighbors helping neighbors. Everyone can participate in as many ways as you can imagine. Newman’s Own will donate $10,000 to 10 different projects! Can't think of a way to participate? Check out the Idea Generator and examples of what other volunteers are doing.

Blog under new Managment

Dear valued Volunteer Blog Friends,

This blog is now under new management! Previously the blog has been written and maintained by the tireless and forever devoted Volunteer Department, now it is in the hands of the merciful and clement Social Media/Website Design/Marketing Department. What does this mean for you, oh fair and gentle reader? Nothing more than that perhaps this space will be updated more regularly, and that, although a volunteer myself (of the rare but valuable AmeriCorps strain), I am not as deeply connected to the volunteer events and the volunteers themselves as the previous managers of this space were. "Oh no!" you say, "A cold and stony website designer, a heartless marketer, has taken over the Volunteer blog! She will care nothing of us and our selfless volunteering ways! She will feed us to the wolves!" But nay, do not fear! I want nothing more than to bring you all the fast breaking volunteer news and share with you the pure joys of the volunteers and the volunteer events. Do not fear to leave comment on these posts, is there something you want to see written about more of less? Would you like an entire weeks worth of blog posts to be about you and your heroistic volunteerism? Just let me know!

Volunteering: easier than eatting pie

Do you only hear about the volunteer events after they happened? Do you read this blog and say, "Hey! That Spring planting/Shabbat packaging/library building looked wicked fun! Why didn't I know about it?" Well, my dear blog friends, do not be left out of the volunteer loop anymore! All of our volunteer events are posted here, on our Facebook page, as well as on our website, and, if you are a friend of Maiden Lane on Facebook, you don't even have to do any work to find out when the next volunteer event is; we will send you an invite with all the important information! How much easier could it get?

Volunteers Needed: Resume Review for Home Attendant Students

Our Home Attendant students are ready to enter the work force! But first they all need stellar resumes to impress future employers with. We need your help to review their resumes, give pointers and brainstorm snappy eye catching verbs that will land them an interview.

This is a great opportunity for Professionals and English Majors alike. Or anyone else who is educated, computer skills, patient, has good listening skills and a friendly manner.

We are doing this event on both October 23rd and October 27th from 5-6. Come to one or both!

Does this sound like something you would like to do? Please RSVP at ahowe@metcouncil.org or call Abbie at 212.453.9653.

Description of Home Attendant Program:
Met Council helps individuals become certified Home Attendants by teaching them how to provide the frail and elderly with assistance in washing, dressing, shopping, cooking, and other essential daily-living tasks. The Met Council curriculum is specifically tailored to immigrants from the former Soviet Union and provides ESL support as well as targeted job placement. Many of the students in this program do not have a resume and do not know how to write one. With the help of volunteers, our clients are able to create a high-quality resume that will help the student obtain a home attendant job and apply for future employment.

MJE Volunteers in the UJA Newsletter

Who knew that volunteering could bring you fame and fortune? The good deeds of the MJE volunteers who made Shabbat packages for Seniors at the Met Council housing sites did not go un-noticed and here they are mentioned in the October 7th issue of the UJA e-newsletter! Good job!

Bringing the Beauty of Shabbat to Homebound Seniors
On Sunday, October 5th, 20 volunteers from Manhattan Jewish Experience led by Daniel Kraus made Shabbat packages for Met Council’s homebound seniors in the Bronx. The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty is a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York. The volunteers, mostly young Jewish professionals in their 20’s and 30’s, made beeswax Shabbat candles, besamim, spice boxes, decorated Shabbat cards, and then tied everything together beautifully. The packages will bring some joy into each homebound senior’s Shabbat.

Tell your story!

Dear Volunteers and Readers!

We at Met Council could write all day about our programs and what all you dedicated volunteers do for us and our clients, and you do a lot! But we'd also like to hear from you! Do you have a blog that you would like to share with this community? What have been your experiences volunteering? The public wants to know!

MJE makes Shabbat Packages!

Yesterday, on October 5th, volunteers from MJE (Manhattan Jewish Experience) teamed up with Met Council to make Shabbat packages for lucky Seniors at our housing sites. The packages included candles, spice boxes, pens, kippot, greeting cards and a personal card written to the recipient of the package. We had a great time! The candles were fun to make and there was an informal, yet fierce competition among the volunteers to see who could make the best card. Does anyone know who won the First Annual Shabbat Card Competition? Thank you everyone for making this event a success and making Shabbat brighter for our Seniors!