Absolutely tremendous stuff! Wonderful recognition of those wonderful volunteers.

Cheers

Judy

Dr Judy Esmond

I am the senior center director for the Franklin County Office Area Agency on Aging in Chambersburg Pennsylvania.

I oversee (8) senior activity centers in our county. We have approximately (300) active volunteers between the agency and the senior centers.

Our volunteers do a variety of things. At the senior centers we serve a meal everyday, and deliver meals to people who are not able to come to the centers, so we have volunteers who prepare food, serve food, and clean up. Senior center volunteers also instruct classes and provide presentations at the centers, run errands, serve on center councils and decorate the centers, and we have about 125 volunteers who deliver meals.

In the AAA office we have office volunteers, volunteers who assist seniors with medicare issues (APPRISE), we have a volunteer agency council, and ombudsman and peer volunteers who assist residents in personal care and nursing facilities with issues they might have. In short, we could not operate without our volunteers.

This year I was told due to funds being cut we were not going to be able to have our recognition banquet at all, so I had to get very creative and figure out how to do it with little or no money. I refused to consider not having anything at all. So, rather than go to a restaurant, we used our own food service for a meal we can afford.

I chose a theme of “Volunteers are Our Everyday Angels” Everyone received an angel token (handmade) attached to a card with an inspirational reading on it, a refrigerator magnet (handmade) that looks like a seed pack and says “Volunteers Sew Seeds of Kindness”, and a personalized certificate of appreciation hand written in script, and signed by the appropriate volunteer coordinators.

Since it was impossible to have speakers at each of the eight centers, I came up with the idea of the DVD. By doing this we were able to get more people on board to express their appreciation, because all they had to do was sit in their office and tape themselves, rather than go out and do an actual speaking engagement.

Hope this is not too much information. I am guessing that everyone is struggling for ideas in this economy. Have a great day!

Sandy Lutz
Franklin County Office Area Agency on Aging
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

I need to use it to give some of my guys a break.

Eli