AOL Monster Help Day

Volunteer Fairfax coordinated AOL Monster Help Day, nearly 700 company employees left their work back at the office and spent the day helping in communities across both the northern Virginia and D.C. metro region. The Center managed volunteers at six area agency sites.

AOL employees felt accomplished and energized by their efforts. The volunteers’ positive effects could be seen through their work on community projects that revitalized grounds and structures, cleaned up and protected the environment, assisted ailing citizens, prepared food for distribution and supported children and youth.

2011 Accomplishments

Cleaned up community parks by removing trash and invasive plants.
At a local food pantry volunteers painted the inside of the pantry and administrative buildings, then cleaned and organized three walk-in freezers.
Spread 222 cubic yards of playground mulch and over 60 cubic yards of flower bed mulch; reconstructed the volley ball pit by distributing over 25 cubic yards of sand to beautify and bring up to code grounds of a school for troubled youth.
Created 700 pre-made baby themed scrapbook pages to support families in the NICU.
Created and decorated whimsical hats for children in local hospitals and created all-in-one kits for after school programs so students can complete similar projects.
At a low income senior residence volunteers beautified the facility by planting flowers, painting curbs and parking lines. Volunteers also interacted with residents for a day of socializing and activities, including BINGO and puzzles

Project Impact

AOL employees walked away with a day of bonding with fellow co-workers, learning about local nonprofits and giving back to the community.

"Twenty-six years ago this month, AOL was founded on a simple premise of helping people get online and connect with their communities,” says Rachel Gross, head of AOL’s community relations. “To celebrate our anniversary, we launched Monster Help – a day of service for all AOL employees. We've had a terrific response from our employees, who enjoyed working hard and making a difference in their communities. Everyone came back to their offices energized by the experience and wanting to do more.”

"We were thrilled to work with Volunteer Fairfax on Monster Help day in Dulles,” adds Ms. Gross. “They really helped increase the scope and scale of our local efforts by creating exciting, large-scale volunteer opportunities for our employees. From concept to execution, the VF team was first rate. We couldn't have asked for a better local partner.”