Ladies...Join Us!!!! What to Wear & How to Prepare

For Volunteers -  What to Wear and How to Prepare Interview Seminar.  This program will run on Monday 9/10, Tuesday, 9/11, and Thursday, 9/13 from 6 PM to 8 PM at the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. 

Each day will consist of two parts: a 30 minute interview preparedness seminar and a 30 minute dress for success seminar.  Additional time will be devoted to questions & answers and the distribution of free work outfits by designer (and generous donor) Mary Bays (www.marybay.info).  

We would greatly appreciate your help in coordinating this event!  If you are willing to contribute, please let me know if you are able to support volunteer recruitment and/or client recruitment.  I’ll gladly provide you with more information. RSVP to Scarva@metcouncil.org / 212-453-9648 with your name and contact information.

For Clients - “What to Wear and How to Prepare” career empowerment for women!

Met Council, in partnership with NYLAG and AmeriCorps, will help you learn the ins and outs of interviewing and how to dress to impress at the job! Then, registered attendees will receive a free, new interview appropriate outfit from designer Mary Bays (which comply with the laws of tznuis). We will give out the dresses in order of registration.

To secure your slot at one of our events, please register here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dE5kNVdFSUM1VFNLTnFMc0dneTluVEE6MQ#gid=0

Please note, you will only be officially registered and on the RSVP list after you have completed and submitted the registration above. Sending an RSVP email or phone call alone is not complete.

We look forward to having you!

Volunteering? There’s an App for That!

            One of the latest mobile and web apps, Reward Volunteers, gives cash and prizes to volunteers who log their hours and post to Facebook. In this way, Reward Volunteers encourages deeds of charity with an incentive to win. Jen Neary, the Cabot Director of Marketing/Integrated Services, adds another dimension to the purpose of the app—its ability to inspire others. By posting volunteer experiences on Facebook, Reward Volunteers “Recognizes and rewards those who give their time…to make their communities better, while encouraging others to get involved.”  If kindness is contagious, Reward Volunteers is helping spread it like an epidemic. In fact, in just the first five months of the application, volunteers logged more than 44,000 hours at over 800 organizations, improving lives of many while inspiring others to do the same. Volunteers devote their time and energy to improve the lives of others, isn’t it time to improve their lives?

To our wonderful Met Council volunteers-- to be eligible for prizes, use the Reward Volunteers website (or mobile app), connect with our Facebook page, and record your hours. Good luck!

(www.RewardVolunteers.coop).

(Some information was taken from CNBC’s Reward Volunteers Mobile App Users Across The Nation Log Over 40,000 Hours Of Community Service After Five Months of Rewarding Volunteers, Cabot Creamery Cooperative Announces Grand Prize Winners for Reward Volunteers)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/48103985/Reward_Volunteers_Mobile_App_Users_Across_The_Nation_Log_Over_40_000_Hours_Of_Community_Service_After_Five_Months_of_Rewarding_Volunteers_Cabot_Creamery_Cooperative_Announces_Grand_Prize_Winners_for_Reward_Volunteers

Written by,

Carly Scheinberg

No Time To Volunteer? Stop Kidding Yourself – Giving Time Gives You Time

I bet you've never considered it from that point of view. After reading the article on www.justmeans.com I realized how true it really is. As a volunteer for over 15 years, I consider myself someone who manages their time effectively. I've also seen myself become overwhelmed with the thought of having to add another activity to my schedule.

However, when it came to volunteering, I didn't necessarily see it as another thing to add. Volunteering has always been a way for me to give back! Giving back to those who may not have had access to opportunities or were restricted due to some other uncontrollable issue. That's why this particular article hit home.

Here are some points that you should consider when choosing how you will get MORE time:

• "Helping others increases our feelings of time affluence. So even though we can’t expand the 24 hours we have each day, using our time to help others makes us feel highly effective and capable, translating to a more “full” and accomplished feeling in our day. And the more we feel accomplished and that we've done a lot with our time, the more time we feel we have."
• "Giving time makes us more willing to commit to future engagements, despite busy schedules. Once we experience the “fullness” one can gain from volunteering time, we are more likely to give our time again in the future. So if companies can encourage employees to get started – perhaps through a company-organized event or signature day of service – individuals will be more likely to continue to serve local communities throughout the year."
• "Giving time to others will actually help the person feel more accomplished, and that they have more time to devote to the tasks clogging their days.

According to new research published in Psychological Science and conducted by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Business School and the Yale School of Management, when people volunteer, it actually makes them feel like they have more time in their days.

Now, consider how you will plan to use all that extra time that you have! If you need options we have plenty that you can choose from by clicking the link - Volunteer with Met Council

Evaluating the Benefits of Volunteers

Just a little over 6 months ago, Met Council and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College partnered to have students lead nutrition workshops for Met Council's low-income seniors in NYC. In just 4 months, 900 hours were completed at 5 housing sites in 3 boroughs, serving over 25 clients each week! We called these weekly nutrition lessons, "New Year You" in the hopes of helping clients improve their health as a New Year resolution. But in order to truly capture the impact of our volunteers on the lives of our clients, we had participants complete preliminary and final surveys anonymously.

What did we ask them? Well, we wanted to investigate our clients' behaviors  before and after learning some actionable nutrition knowledge. Here is just a sample of some of our questions:

1. When purchasing food, how often to you read the nutrition facts label? 
2. In a typical day, how many servings of fruit do you eat? (we asked the same of vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and sweets)
3. How often do you prepare and eat your meals at home?
4. How often do you get take-out meals or eat out?

In order to ensure accuracy, we kept the questions the same for before and after the the workshops and across all housing sites. So lets get to the positive results!*

• We saw improvement in a couple areas, most notably, more respondents always read the nutrition facts when purchasing food, if not often.  
• More respondents were eating servings of vegetables and whole grains as according to dietary guidelines. 
• They were also eating less servings of sweets as recommended by the guidelines!
• Lastly, we saw an increase in the percentage of respondents who were preparing and eating most, if not all, their meals at home. 
• This is beneficial because you can control the amount you eat as well as what goes into your food such as less fat, more veggies, etc

With this information, we can continue to better our workshops and ensure the effectiveness of our programming and our volunteers. Next year, we will target our clients' problem areas and further improve their health. All steps in combating hunger and poverty in NYC!

*20 total respondents- 10 preliminary and 10 final surveys were completed in their entirety. This survey is not quantitatively accurate or reliable acor, but purely anecdotal evidence. We aren't statisticians, nor are we trying to be. 

Volunteering: A way to help the needy, a way to feel fulfilled, a way to get a job? Yes

Volunteering: A way to help the needy, a way to feel fulfilled, a way to get a job? Yes, volunteering may help you secure that job you’ve been after. Although many people do not even list community service experiences on their resumes, studies show that it actually can make a big difference in the hiring process. LinkedIn recently published a survey revealing that hiring managers consider volunteer experience a crucial part of the evaluation process. The study found that forty one percent of hiring professionals consider volunteer experience as important as paid work experience. In fact, twenty percent of those professionals concede that they have made a hiring decision based on a candidate’s volunteer experience (LinkedIn). The business networking site even added a “Volunteer Experience & Causes” field to profiles, encouraging professionals to value their community service experiences. That small addition emphasizes the importance in community service beyond the intrinsic value of doing good. Volunteering helps create a multifaceted individual, making them a more attractive employee in the long run.

In the competitive job market, volunteering provides candidates with that necessary advantage to secure jobs because it allows them to accrue an additional set of skills. Met Council recognizes the value of volunteering and offers a multitude of volunteer opportunities, whether it involves assisting with the food pantry, visiting senior citizens, or interning in the office. But unfortunately in today’s recession, many are left unemployed and cannot afford to work without pay. The New York State Department of Labor recently reported that while “New York State's unemployment rate was 8.0% in August 2011, unchanged from July 2011…The number of unemployed New Yorkers increased slightly over the month -- from 755,900 in July to 756,400 in August 2011” (New York State Department of Labor). Appreciating the weight of this data, Met Council offers a unique program in its Career Services Center, specially designed for unemployed skilled volunteers. This new program gives unemployed workers volunteer opportunities and then afterward gives them paid jobs at Met Council. This innovative approach allows unemployed workers to work for a charitable cause while earning money to support their families. Helping low to moderate-income workers find jobs, Met Council allows these workers to develop a new sense of self sufficiency.

Written By Carly Scheinberg

 

LinkedIn survey: http://press.linkedin.com/node/870

New York State Department of Labor: http://www.labor.ny.gov/stats/pressreleases/pruistat.shtm