When is Volunteer Month? ⏰

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National Volunteer Month lies in the month of April every year! This month-long event is celebrated in both Canada and the USA. Although we appreciate those who volunteer for our community all year long, April is an important time to celebrate and recognize them! Volunteer Week specifically happens on April 18th through April 24th in 2022.

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What is Volunteer Month? 💭

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National Volunteer Month is a month dedicated to honoring the volunteers within our community. As these volunteers make significant contributions and dedicate their time to bring awareness to various causes, Volunteer Month is the time to support, celebrate and show appreciation to those individuals! Volunteer Month is also dedicated to promoting volunteerism and encouraging the members of your team to step up in their community. Inspire others by becoming a volunteer and providing service to those in need at your company. 

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The History of Volunteer Month 📖

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National Volunteer Month began during 1943 in Canada and was first used to highlight the efforts that women put towards helping wounded soldiers and collecting supplies during World War II. The celebratory week was soon calmed down after the war, but this event was then brought up again by the general public in the USA during 1974. Since then, National Volunteer week was able to advance into National Volunteer month, and is now used to show our appreciation and gratitude to those who volunteer to make our community a better place. 

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How to Celebrate National Volunteer Month with your Team in 2022 👥

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A great way to celebrate National Volunteer Month with your team is to acknowledge the efforts and show thanks to those who have volunteered to help make our community a better place. With the pandemic making it difficult to host all in-person events, here are a few hybrid-friendly ways that you and your team can celebrate National Volunteer Month!

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ERG Partnerships 🤝

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When we look at Employee Resource Groups (ERG), we think of teams who are dedicated to ensuring everyone feels welcome and heard in their workplace. Typically, ERGs include members who share the same characteristics and values. Hosting an ERG event for your team may be difficult for a few people to grasp the purpose and organize the event. To reduce the weight of this responsibility, you can suggest your employees to volunteer in helping with organizing your own internal ERG events. Here is a quick video that discusses how you can engage volunteers for your ERG’s. In addition, your ERGs can find organizations that align with their values and that need volunteers to support their efforts. ERGs can help connect volunteers on your team with volunteer opportunities, both in-person and virtual, especially during Volunteer Month.

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Donations 🙏

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If you and your team find it difficult to take some time to celebrate in National Volunteer Month, another alternative to participate is looking into some Volunteering Donation organizations. Pitching in some donations to volunteering campaigns helps them fund the activities they want to host for you and your community. Here are a few volunteering campaigns that you can donate to!:

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• VolunteerLethbridge
• RedCross
• VolunteerCanada
• Community Development

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Team Reflections 💭

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The theme for this year's National Volunteer Month (2022) is “Volunteering is Empathy in Action”. For this theme, we want to focus on the strong connection between volunteering and empathy. To celebrate this theme, you and your team can reflect on the awareness, impact, and connections that you were able to experience from this occasion, as well as discuss how you and your team will carry forward these learnings. These reflections can be done in-person or through online platforms such as Zoom and Teamflow. Before we reflect as a team, we have listed some volunteer opportunities that you can sign up for!

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Volunteer Opportunities 🤝

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If you are interested in stepping up and volunteering, here is a list of opportunities to look into!

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Virtual 💻

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• Cancer Research Society
• Catchafire
• Crisis Text Line 
• Cards for a Cause 
• The Kids Circle Foundation
• RAINN
• The Trevor Project

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In-person 🤝

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• A Greener Future
• Project Sunshine 
• American Red Cross
• NPower

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Celebrating the Active Volunteers on Your Team 🎊

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As National Volunteer Month is also dedicated to honoring the volunteers within your community, it is also important to celebrate the active volunteers on your team! There are many different ways you can celebrate the volunteers within your team, for example:

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• Send the top volunteer a gift basket or give the team with the most active volunteers a prize. 
• Give the top volunteers in the company a shoutout during an all hands or even write a special message for them on Slack! 
• Share your team’s volunteer achievements on your company social media pages.

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As these individuals dedicate their time to make contributions and bring awareness to various causes, they deserve to feel acknowledged and appreciated, and rewarding them with a present or a shoutout, is the perfect way to do so!