Jul 10, 2009
Asking Charlotte to Get "Hands On"
Hands on Charlotte challenges Boston
Hands On Charlotte, a local nonprofit agency that maximizes volunteer engagement to meet community needs, has launched a local campaign supporting President and Mrs. Obama’s United We Serve national volunteering initiative. They are encouraging citizens to step up to help answer the challenges we face in Charlotte. HOC’s United We Serve campaign asks individuals to commit to volunteering a certain amount of hours between now and September 11, and gives them a range of options for fulfilling those commitments — everything from attending four of Hands On Charlotte’s hundreds of regularly scheduled volunteer projects to getting trained as a Project Leader to developing one’s own volunteer project. Details on how to get involved are available by visiting the agency’s web site at HandsOnCharlotte.org.
At the same time, Hands On Charlotte is challenging its counterpart in Boston to see which city gets the most response to the president’s call to service.
Spanning the 81 days between June 22 and a National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11, United We Serve is meant to represent the beginning of a sustained and collaborative national effort to meet community needs and to make service a way of life for all Americans. The HandsOn Network – a national group of 250 HandsOn Action Centers – is a key activator in this effort.
After Boston Cares, the HandsOn Network affiliate that serves the Greater Boston community, kicked off its local United We Serve initiative on July 1, Hands On Charlotte leadership called to challenge Boston to see which group could generate the most hours pledged. They accepted and the game is on!
“Boston Cares is a bigger organization than us, and they have a week’s head start,” said Lisa Quisenberry, HOC’s consulting executive director, “but we don’t mind being the underdog. We know the Charlotte community will step up to the challenge—whether that challenge is the needs of our local nonprofit agencies or a city-to-city challenge from Boston.”
Hands On Charlotte has been providing Charlotte citizens with meaningful volunteer opportunities since 1991. Now, in the recognition of the challenges our community and our nonprofit partners are facing, HOC is dramatically increasing its outreach and asking everyone in Charlotte to step forward with us and build solutions through active and engaged citizenship.
About Hands On Charlotte: Hands On Charlotte's mission is to strengthen our community and enrich lives by mobilizing a diverse corps of volunteers in direct volunteer service. Each year we inspire, equip and mobilize thousands of volunteers to take action that changes our city. Hands On Charlotte works with local nonprofits, schools and government agencies to deploy volunteers to meet critical community needs. Our vision is to maximize volunteer impact in Charlotte.Hands On Charlotte can be reached at 704-333-7471 or www.handsoncharlotte.org.
About United We Serve: United We Serve is a nationwide service initiative that will help meet growing social needs resulting from the economic downturn. With the knowledge that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things when given the proper tools, President Obama is asking us to come together to help lay a new foundation for growth. This initiative aims to both expand the impact of existing organizations by engaging new volunteers in their work and encourage volunteers to develop their own "do-it-yourself" projects with friends, family, and neighbors. United We Serve is an initial 81 days of service from June 22 to September 11 but will grow into a sustained, collaborative and focused effort to promote service as a way of life for all Americans. More information can be found at Serve.gov.
About HandsOn Network: HandsOn Network inspires, equips and mobilizes people to take action that changes the world through its 250 HandsOn Action Centers. It is the activation arm of the Points of Light Institute. HandsOnNetwork.org.
