Recognize your volunteers

National Volunteer Week is quickly approaching - this year's celebration of volunteers will be April 18-24.

The Volunteer Center of Story County recommends a number of ways to recognize the volunteers putting in hours at your agency.

1) Nominate your volunteers that are under the age of 25 for the 2010 Story County Youth Volunteer Award. This is a great way to appreciate your young volunteers. Awards such as these look great on resumes when applying for colleges, scholarships or jobs. Nomination forms are due March 23 and can be found on our Web site at www.vcstory.org. Recipients will be recognized at a reception on April 19 at the Iowa State University Memorial Union.

2) Encourage volunteers to sign up for the 10,000 Hours Show. This is a program to recognize young volunteers for all of their work. For volunteering 10 hours at your organization, volunteers can attend a free concert with other volunteers around Central Iowa. This year's concert will be by nationally-known band Cold War Kids on April 9 in the Great Hall of the ISU Memorial Union. To sign up, visit http://www.10000hours.stuorg.iastate.edu/Home.html.

3) Help your volunteers get a free ticket to a Disney Theme Park with the Give a Day, Get a Disney Day program. Sign your organization up at http://VOP.HandsOnNetwork.org, and verify the hours of your volunteers. One million tickets are being given out - sign up soon!

There are many, many other ways to recognize your volunteers - hold your own awards ceremony, give small tokens of appreciation, write a letter of recommendation, give volunteers more responsibility, provide additional training or professional development, or just say THANK YOU!