Our Volunteers Have Talent!

It's always wonderful when a volunteer comes to Met Council to help! But it's even better when they have a hidden talent! That is just the case with one of our volunteers named Maria.

Maria is currently a senior fitness volunteer at two different Met Council senior homes in Brooklyn. She gives our low-income seniors the care and attention they deserve. At one of our sites she leads a fitness class where seniors can work on their strength and balance with the support of a chair. And very excitingly, at our other site, she leads a Wii Fitness class in which our seniors play and compete in Wii games, and sometimes unknowingly, work on their balance and fitness!

Well, a few times, I've caught Maria playing the piano in the community room before our fitness class started. It turns out that she and her husband, Timothy, actually play the piano and sing together. They sing show tunes, and songs from musical films. And when I asked her if she'd be interested in having a music recital at one of our sites she immediately said yes!

This past Sunday, the residents of one of our Brooklyn sites and I had the chance to hear how talented Maria and Timothy were! They sang songs from The Sound of Music, Evita, and even Phantom of the Opera! It was lovely. If you volunteer for Met Council and have any secret talents: don't keep them a secret! We'd love to have you share them!

Volunteer Department is Going Green

Besides our regular programming Met Council's volunteers also take on special initiatives. Our big one right now is to create opportunities for volunteers to Green Met Council.

We have started with some easy stuff. Volunteers have gone around to our low income seniors and given out energy efficient bulbs. This is not only good for the environment, but also saves low income seniors money. Not bad for a few hours of volunteer work. A big thanks to Home Depot for providing us with a grant to make this happen.

Volunteers have also helped to create gardens for seniors. One of the gardens even has an eggplant growing in it! The next step after creating the gardens is to work with our seniors to make windowsill herb gardens. We will be making these out of soda bottles and planting herbs that our seniors will then use to cook with. This is in thanks to a UJA Social Action Month Grant and a partnership with Hazon. We are still looking for volunteers for this project, if you are interested please contact volunteer@metcouncil.org.

In addition to helping our clients become green we are also making our selves greener. We have bought an Ipad to help cut our paper use. We will soon begin to have our sign in sheets on the Ipad, additionally all forms needing to be signed will be on the Ipad. This will eliminate a tremendous amount of paper use. We are also looking into buying real dishes for a few of our senior lunch programs. This will help eliminate a lot of waste.

As this initiative grows we hope to take on bigger projects like harvesting rain water and composting. Also doing tenant education and helping to create green habits.

This effort is on going and we can always use the help of our volunteers. We can save our planet one small step at a time.

If you want to make your life greener, here are some easy tips:

1. Plug your electronics into a power strip and turn the power strip off when you are not home. Even though the power of your electronic is off, it is still drawing power. If you turn off the power strip it cuts all electricity which in turn cuts your electricity bill.

2. Wash your clothing in cold water. They will still be clean and save electricity.

3. Make sure you properly section out your recycling. Recycling saves natural resources.

One last thank you to The Jewish Greening Fellowship for not only providing funds, but for providing the training, tools and resources to allow us to properly do our part and reduce Met Council's carbon footprint.

Recognizing Nelson Mandela's Birthday

In honor of Nelson Mandela’s birthday, which the UN General Assembly declared as Nelson Mandela International Day, everyone is encouraged to carry out 67 minutes of volunteer work. Why 67, you ask? This was the total number of years that Mr. Mandela committed to serving the greater good of the world as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa. Although 67 minutes does not do justice to an outstanding 67 years, it still makes all the difference.

Some people may find that 67 minutes of direct volunteer work is hard to come by, due to the demands of their busy schedules. This should not excuse them from devoting an hour and 7 minutes of their time to charity work, especially now that organizations offer the opportunity to volunteer from the comfort of their own homes! For example, one can help an organization design a flyer, edit a blog post, provide business or legal expertise or even make a friendly phone call to a lonely senior citizen, all of which can help change our world for the better.

Given today’s economic climate and cutting of human services, everyone should feel a sense of obligation to participate in some form of volunteerism. Whether it’s online or in person, 67 minutes or 67 years, we encourage you to volunteer!

How to Make the Perfect Ice Cream Sundae

Last week, Met Council volunteers learned an important skill that they will treasure for ever - how to make the perfect ice cream sundae!

New York City's temperatures have been set to boil this July, so our department decided that it was high time for the 3rd annual Cool Off in July party for low income seniors. Every summer, we invite senior residents to escape the heat by coming to the Cool Off in July party - hosted by volunteers - which serves ice cream, fresh fruit, cool beverages.


Below is volunteers' collective wisdom on how to make the perfect ice cream sundae:

1. Have a healthy selection of ice cream flavors (we chose vanilla, chocolate, mint chocolate chip)

2. Add chocolate sauce to top of three flavors of ice cream

3. Add generous dose of rainbow sprinkles

4. Add fresh fruit like strawberries or cherries

5. Don't forget the most important ingredient . . .

And so what is the most important ingredient to the Cool Off in July Sundaes? Hint: it isn't the sprinkles or chocolate sauce. The most important ingredient was the friendly smiles and great conversation volunteers gave senior residents to accompany the ice cream. There's nothing quite like an ice cream served with a warm smile on a hot summer day!

Too Hip to Volunteer at Met Council?

The June 2011 Report on Jewish Volunteering from Repair the World opened up a lot of questions for Met Council’s Volunteer Department. I would like to focus on one of them in this blog. Below is an excerpt from the report which talks about young Jews not always finding the kind of volunteer opportunity they are looking for; rather they volunteer for those things that get the most press or are most easily accessible.

Jewish young adults want to “make a difference,” and the majority appears to have a sense of personal efficacy. However, those subgroups that are least likely to volunteer also have the weakest belief that their volunteer efforts can contribute to desired effects. The personal relevance of the causes for which Jewish young adults are being asked to volunteer may also play a role in their decision making. Many Jewish young adults do not find their way into volunteer opportunities related to the causes about which they care most deeply. Volunteer options related to the full spectrum of Jewish young adult concerns may either not be available or may not be well known among this demographic.

An AmeriCorps grant has given Met Council the ability to expand their Volunteer Department and as a result has seen 48% increase in volunteers over the past year. This huge jump means 1,529 new volunteers serving New Yorkers in need!

Met Council recruits volunteers in two ways: by individual and by group. The groups are usually groups of young Jewish professionals who are coming to volunteer with an organization they are affiliated with and want to help out. They are coming with their friends or acquaintances for a few hours of collaboratively making a difference. According to our volunteer questionnaire, most individuals that we recruit are not Jewish and state that they are signing up to “give back to the community.” They come to us on their own and for no other reason than it is part of their ethic.

While Met Council has no preference for Jewish over not Jewish volunteers, we are a Jewish agency who has a unique position within the Jewish community; we have the cultural expertise with Jewish and immigrant communities. A unique mix of volunteers is exactly what we need, but it still begs the question- why it is more difficult to recruit individual volunteers that are Jewish?

Maybe there is something to the fact that young Jews like to socialize with other young Jews and they are guaranteed that when they volunteer with a group of young Jews! Or maybe volunteering for Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty isn’t as attention-grabbing as some of the high profile social justice movements that are out there?

What do you guys think?

Keeping our seniors happy and healthy!

We all know it's important for every community to take care of their seniors. A recent study shows that seniors who live in public housing are less healthy than their peers. Read more about it here! With that in mind, it's especially important for Met Council to be able to provide programming for our low-income senior housing sites. Thanks to our wonderful volunteers we can provide programs that promote health, fitness, and good nutrition.

Just take a look at all the upcoming events for one of your senior residences in Brooklyn:
Let's all work together to keep their calendars full of events!