Volunteer Appreciation Week

This is Volunteer Appreciation Week (well the tail end of it - 4/23-4/29) - This is probably something that most people are completely unaware of - and reading this they are saying... "next blog" - because, it's boring. Well it's boring to everyone that doesn't work with volunteers nearly daily. So... I work for a non-profit foundation, and we sent out a sappy little card to all of our volunteers saying "thank you" - it was nice, not fabulous but nice (I wanted to send them all candy bars with customized wrappers - maybe next year - I also wanted to send them all this little card that is 'tips for caregivers' - because most of them are indeed caregivers [aren't we all]) - okay so anyhow, this is volunteer appreciation week. Now, I stayed home for years, neither my husband nor I finished our degrees in college, we both had great paying jobs working our way through college and it was just so much easier to stick with that - we were making more than our friends who had finished college (btw to anyone thinking of quitting college - all those people we WERE making more than, are making shitloads more than us now), so we aren't just rolling around in cash that we are dying to give to organizations that touch our hearts. But we do volunteer, OMG do we volunteer, we are volunteer junkies - our accountant every year tells us that we probably shouldn't claim ALL of our volunteer mileage, etc. - so we don't. He coaches, mostly that's his gig - but coaching is a huge commitment of time and miles, etc. - I work with the girls organizations, keep score at ballgames (that would make a very good post), work at school occasionally, coordinate a team to raise money for ALS, coordinate volunteers for several other organizations, and of course working for a non-profit - I do my fairshare of volunteering there as well - so.... what the hell was the point of this? - oh yeah volunteer appreciation week... no I still don't know what my point was... crap. OMG duh! So, yesterday an opportunity to volunteer presented itself through the networking of the non-profits that work together - in other words a friend of my boss needed volunteers and contacted my boss because she is the most hooked up person in the city for volunteers - really she is, she has hundreds that will do almost anything for her - anyhow, this was a nice one, go put pompoms on the seats for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and get two tickets to the playoff game... yeah you heard me - TWO tickets to a PLAYOFF game (per volunteer) - well my kids didn't have school... so the kids and I - that makes 4 volunteers - took off and went on down - also my boss was busy, so I coordinated the volunteers that came through our organization - we worked for like 1.5 hours, watched the players skate, and had a pretty nice time, then we handed out all the tickets - really nice tickets. I took my husband and each kid took a friend - it was an outstanding game, and wow did I feel appreciated!