VOLUNTEERS – SUPER IMPORTANT— PLEASE SAVE THIS PAGE …Marlene Hruby
This is a clarification of how to report your volunteer hours. The Day of Service category refers to the National AARP Day of Service, not each individual day that you did your volunteering. Unfortunately, National usually notifies us of this date too late to be announced in our Dispatch and sometimes even too late for our general meeting.
The annual AARP Activities Report is very specific as to volunteer categories. Our Standing Rules state all community-oriented volunteer activities of our members shall be considered “chaptersponsored.” These activities are in no way conducted by AARP, which has no responsibility in connection with such activities. These are the same reporting categories to match AARP’s definitions as last year. Thank goodness they did not change them again.
The report asks for the number of times as well as hours, i.e. if you worked once a week two hours at a time, you would report 4 times and a total of 8 hours for a four week month. If you have questions about this, call Marlene.
Advocacy/Legislative: Non-partisan activities supporting the goals and strategies of AARP, your AARP State Office or a local community need. Examples include get-out-the-vote campaigns, writing letter to Congress on issues of concern, or hosting a community issues forum.
Education/Scholarships or other: Programs designed to identify and support the ongoing education of deserving students in the community. Any other school- or education- based community activity, such as literacy2 projects, adopt-a-school programs, tutoring, building a school playground, collecting school supplies for needy children or instructing seniors on how to use a computer should also be included in this section.
Fundraising: Projects like bake sales, silent auctions and other activities that raise money for the chapter’s community service projects (i.e. our Treasure Chest and Opportunity Drawing).
Health and Wellness: This includes chapter support for events promoting physical activity.
Hunger: Chapter efforts or programs that support or fight hunger. Examples include food drives or donating money to help hunger.
Long-Term Care/Nursing Home Support: Programs in which members provide friendly visits, reading, letter writing, etc. for shut-ins, residents of nursing homes and veterans’ facilities, as well as general support for such facilities.
AARP’S DAY OF SERVICE – This is National AARP’s Day of Service that they never give us ample time to publicize. IT IS NOT the day that you perform your volunteer duties.
AARP Driver Safety
AARP Foundation Tax-Aide
All Other: This general category includes all other chapter community service projects, including clothing drives, other support for needy members of the community, disaster relief or emergency preparedness, outreach to the disabled community, Habitat for Humanity, services to youth and seniors, etc.