What a cheerful name! “Welcome Wednesday.” Wednesday has a good feeling, because it’s hump day and when you’re over it, you’re closer to the next weekend than to the last. For the Senior and Retired Volunteer Program, though, it has an even happier feeling – once a month, on the third Wednesday, RSVP hosts a service/social event during which our volunteers enjoy friendship and snacks while completing a project for one of our nonprofit partners.
In the last six months alone, Welcome Wednesday volunteers have made bookmarks and literacy chalkboards for children learning to read, safety packets for the Fairfax County Department of Emergency Management and Security, trail mix snack packs for unsheltered individuals, comfort kits for the Red Cross, publicity boards for NV Rides, direct support care packages for CRi, pillowcases for Operation Gratitude, swag bags for Volunteer Solutions Ventures into Volunteering event, and “I Spy” bottles to stimulate the imaginations of young students.
What started two years ago as a small event with a few regular participants has blossomed into one where we welcome 30 or more volunteers each month and, unfortunately, sometimes struggle to accommodate their enthusiastic desire to serve.
With a very small budget, it isn’t easy to find suitable projects that we can afford, and of course our nonprofit partners generally have no budget at all for items that enhance the lives of those they serve with essentials.
For this reason, we’ve started a wish list on Amazon (https://a.co/510MAze), and welcome donations through this list. In addition, we would welcome financial donations to RSVP through the Volunteer Fairfax website (https://volunteerfairfax.app.neoncrm.com/forms/donate). In the fund field, be sure to designate your donation to RSVP. Any contribution will be gratefully accepted, and you can know for certain that the fruit of RSVP volunteer labor goes directly to someone who appreciates it – perhaps a child who carefully marks their place in a book whose meaning they are just learning to sound out.