NobleHour Blog

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor Natasha Derezinski-Choo.

Over the last quarter of a millennium, humans have moved indoors.  Beginning in 1750 with the first wave of the Industrial Revolution, a gross migration began to occur when people from rural, outdoor, farming communities moved to cities.  Now, more than 50 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. In the early stages of industrialization, people were moving to cities for factory work. Now, in the post-industrial economies of the developed world, people have moved up from the factories and are working in office spaces, living stationary lifestyles under fluorescent lights.  

With the invention of universal education that came with industrialization, children have also been brought inside. Education inflation has caused young people not only to spend school hours inside, but also to spend more time inside studying, with everyone sinking down in front of the TV or computer when the long, tiring day is over.  Today, we see less-developed countries experiencing the same lifestyle shift that brought us indoors.  

Now, I’m not romanticising life before the “Great Indoor Migration”, because I think it has ultimately improved our lives.  Without this shift I would probably be spending my day harvesting crops, cleaning the house, and thinking about getting married in five years. Instead, I’m going to school and hoping in five years to start a life and career for myself.  The fact of the matter is that we are now living indoors more, and it’s time to spend a little time being active outside.

The fun, animated video “What if You Stopped Going Outside?” describes health risks and problems that could arise from not spending enough time outside - including osteoporosis, depression, and even cancers. 

Furthermore, the Harvard Health Letter gives some of the benefits of spending time outside. These benefits include getting more vitamin D, more exercise, a happier life, better concentration, and a better healing time in the event of injury (you can read more about how sunshine and fresh air help these processes). Being outside feels good and is good for you. Being outside and being active go hand in hand with being healthier and happier, but the main problem facing most people is finding time to be more active.  Volunteering outdoors is a great way to merge outdoor activities with community engagement. You will be impacting the community by volunteering and helping yourself by being active.

While out in nature, you are inevitably active.  Hiking, climbing, and running are all ways we interact with nature while being active.  It is also important to protect the environment around us so it can sustain us and an active lifestyle. Volunteering with organizations concerned with the environment is a great way to get active and volunteer. Some outdoor environmental projects could entail planting a community or urban garden or helping clean up a river, beach, highway, or nearby park. To find these types of opportunities, look up local parks and environmental organizations. Remember not only to keep it outdoorsy and active, but to keep it local too. Part of being more active is also getting out of those cars and using your legs as transportation.  Cars pollute the environment, so if you are trying to improve the environment and enjoy your time outdoors, do your best not to pollute it even more.  Plus, you’ll have a direct impact on your own local community.  

Sports are another way people enjoy their time outdoors.  Walks and marathons are common fundraising events, and nonprofits are always in need of volunteers to register runners, hand out water, stand along the route and encourage the racers.  For example, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure and the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in the States are two runs held to support breast cancer research and breast cancer survivors.  Right now, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but the events are held year round. Local organizations may also hold fundraising races for local causes. In Greensboro, NC, an event call the Chicken Walk will take place next month to raise money to help the Interactive Resource Center, a local resource that helps people experiencing homelessness, keep its doors open.  A fantastic woman named Amy Murphy began the project by taking chicken that restaurants were throwing away, and feeding it to the homeless, who she refers to as her “friends downtown.”  If you are in the area, find out more about this year’s inaugural Chicken Walk. Volunteering with athletics is a great way to help with an important cause, but volunteering actively can also mean supporting the cause of physical activity and exercise itself.  

Volunteer coaching or hosting a field day are both great ways to get outdoors.  Not only will you be active, get outside, and have fun, but you’ll also bring the importance of being active to children growing up in the “Great Indoor Migration”. You’ll become a positive mentor and leader to the kids you work with. You can inspire them to lead healthier lives, develop sportsmanship, and enjoy just being a kid.  To find these kinds of opportunities, team up with local schools, parks, and recreation centres to get involved or to pioneer your own program geared toward fitness.  

What are some ways you are tracking your Noble Impact™ by getting active outdoors? 


Classroom image via FotoPedia

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor Natasha Derezinski-Choo.

The season’s spookiest holiday is just around the corner, but let’s not forget that the scariest things in life don’t come out on Halloween night.  Can you imagine what it would be like to not have have a house, to not have food, to not have clean water, to not have a school to go to, or not to have a family?  Facing life’s toughest challenges and uncertainties is scary.  This Halloween, apart from the ghosts and the jack-o'-lanterns, try to imagine what really scares you and find ways to impact your community and help people in dire situations. Why not celebrate this year with these service ideas? 

1. Costume Event Fundraiser:  Host a Halloween party and ask your friends to each bring a small donation for a local nonprofit.  If your school doesn’t allow costumes, see if this year the rules can be broken for a good cause.  Talk to your principal about letting students come in their spooky attire provided they donate to your fundraiser.  If every student in your school donated a dollar, or even a quarter, how much could you raise while still having fun? You could even expand the event by having a whole week of fundraising with a Halloween-related theme for each day.  

2. Neighborhood Trick-or-Treat Food Drive:  Trick-or-treating is a precious memory.  For me, I always remember my cousins and I precariously huddled together, walking up to the houses with the scaries decorations (and the best candy) only to run back down the driveway screaming at whatever creature had popped out as us. However, it was all worth it when we returned home with sacks of candy.  But with all those bags of candy, I never finished them all.  Instead of collecting candy for yourself, help someone in need by asking your neighbors to give you canned and dried food when you come knocking on their doors.  Try to get as many peers to participate in your efforts to greater the collective impact of just one night of trick-or-treating.  For tips on how to start a program like this in your neighborhood, read about Free the Children’s We Scare Hunger Program. 

3. Donate a Costume: Bring the fun and scares of Halloween to someone in need by donating old or outgrown costumes that you don’t need anymore.

4. Pumpkin Crafts: A fun way to celebrate Halloween is by decorating pumpkins.  Share this experience with others by volunteering to help children carve their own Jack-o-Lantern. You could read stories to the children about Halloween and make Halloween decorations out of construction paper if the pumpkins are too messy.  You could also volunteer at a senior citizen home and decorate pumpkins with them.  These crafts could be carving up the pumpkin to create a traditional jack-o'-lantern, or just decorating pumpkins on the outside with paint, glitter, ribbons, etc. and putting them in the seniors’ rooms.  Paint half your pumpkins black and create a large checkers board to play pumpkin checkers.  The smaller pumpkins are ideal for these types of projects because they are easier to work with,  less expensive, and everyone can have one.  

5. “Trick or Treating for UNICEF”: Beginning in 1950, children have been collecting spare change on Halloween night to collect money to help UNICEF provide basic needs for children worldwide. The first campaign, started by a group of schoolchildren in Philadelphia, raised $17, but in the 60+ years of the program, children trick-or-treating in the United States have raised almost $160 million.  The program has not only been successful to help children abroad, but it educates children on global issues; participating in the program “has given US children, along with their parents and teachers, the opportunity to learn about their peers worldwide who are truly in need” of necessities such as “ medicine, better nutrition, safe water, education, [and] emergency relief.”  This program is about children helping other children in the world.  To find out how to volunteer this Halloween through this program, click here.  

   

6. Halloween Safety:  Halloween is fun, but it’s also important for children, especially younger ones, to be aware of how to be safe while walking in the streets at night.  Educate youngsters by creating a fun presentation about Halloween safety.  Perhaps design a skit about what to do and what not to do.  Be sure to emphasize points like staying in a group, crossing the streets carefully, denying invitations into people’s houses, and staying on streets you are familiar with.  Plan a safe Halloween event by hosting Halloween events where children can have fun, be scared, and stay safe.  Here’s an example of a project done by one high school: “With the goal of providing a safe environment for children to go trick-or-treating, Sycamore (Ill.) High School Student Council hosts a unique activity on Halloween. They contact a local retirement center and arrange to have trick-or-treaters visit on Halloween. Student council members provide candy to participating residents and decorate their doors to indicate which rooms children may visit. The trick-or-treaters are escorted around the building by council members.”  Similar project ideas can be found here.  

What volunteer service projects will you participate in this Halloween?

Image Attribution:
Pumpkins
Candy Corn

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor Natasha Derezinski-Choo.

Volunteerism is not only great for the community, but it can also benefit young volunteers by creating opportunities for scholarships. Several programs exist to reward students for their service to the community and help them finance their higher education.  Here are a few examples of volunteer scholarships:

• The Prudential Spirit of Community Award “is the United States' largest youth recognition program based exclusively on volunteer community service.”  This award is available to students in grades 5-12 who have engaged in community service and leadership over the last year.  The deadline for applications this year is November 5^th, and the winners will be announced on February 11th, 2014.  Winners are selected on the local, state, and national level.  A special awards ceremony for state winners is held in Washington, DC.  A $5,000 award is given to winners who progress to the national level.  The Spirit of Community program encourages service on an international platform, awarding students in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Ireland, India, and China.
  
  
• The Best Buy Scholarship Program awards 1,100 scholarships each year to high schools students who show strength in both academics and volunteerism.  The scholarship money is given for higher education.  In addition to academic records and extracurricular activities, students are asked to provide a record of their service-learning hours when applying.
  
  
• The Gloria Baron Prize for Young Heros annually recognizes 25 outstanding young leaders. The founder of the Barron Prize, author T. A. Barron, named it after his late mother Gloria. Gloria Barron was a teacher, a mother, and an active member of her community.  She dedicated her life to young people, encouraging her students to write their stories down and urging them to do something to better the world.  She believed in the power of the individual, particularly a young individual's ability to better the greater community. Young people across America can be nominated for the award after completing a service project that makes "a significant positive difference to people and our planet."  Nominations are accepted until April 30, and winners are announced late September.  Of the 25 selected, the top ten receive $5,000 to be applied to their higher education or to their service project, a recognition plaque, a signed copy of "The Hero's Trail" by T.A. Barron, and other awards. The Barron Prize seeks to recognize the inspiring work of young people.
• The retail store Kohl’s offers the Kohl's Cares Scholarship Program for students aged 6-18 who have not yet graduated from high school.  The program has recognized 17,500 students and granted over three million dollars in scholarships.  Students are nominated and selected based on the impact their volunteer hours had on the community.  Winners from each store receive a $50 Kohl's Gift Certificate.  The most meaningful projects are selected from each region and awarded $1000, and national winners receive a $10,000 scholarship plus a donation of $1000 to a nonprofit valued by the student.  The award monies for region and national winners are used toward the student's higher education.  Nominations for the 2014 Kohls Cares Scholarship Program will be open from January 31-March 14, 2014.
  
  These are just some examples of scholarships for volunteers provided by private institutions, but several publicly funded programs also exist to recognize volunteerism:
  
  Several Government scholarships exist to award students for their service and help them pay for higher education.  AmeriCorps, a branch of the Corporation for National and Community Service*, encourages young people to dedicate a year to service working with a nonprofit, school, public agency, or community.  Students earn valuable skills, become civically minded, and gain experience valued in the workforce—where they are heading after their year of service.  For their volunteer work, students receive a small stipend to cover living expenses, since in dedicating all their time to volunteering, they have no other source of income.  They also receive benefits such as healthcare and childcare during their time as a volunteer.  Upon finishing a term of volunteerism, students are eligible to apply for the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award*, which awards volunteer scholarship money to be put towards paying for higher education or repaying student loans.  The scholarship award is valued at the maximum Pell Grant during the year of service.  Members of AmeriCorps can receive up to two Education Awards if they volunteer for more than one term.  This program not only encourages young people to serve and become active and dedicated to a cause, it also helps them pay for their higher education.
  
  
• The President’s Volunteer Service Award*, previously discussed on NobleHour, also recognizes volunteers who, alongside their daily lives, track hundreds of hours helping in the community.  Applicants are asked to produce some type of log as proof of their volunteer hours.  Tracking volunteer hours on using NobleHour’s hour-tracking software is a way to accomplish this.
  
  

Volunteer scholarships are a great opportunity to help reward and recognize students for their work and help them pay off their tuition.  What are some other ways students can use their talents to overcome the challenges of today’s rising tuition fees?

*For the time being, volunteers are unable to apply for these programs and awards due to the federal government shutdown. More information about the effects of the government shut down can be read in the Corporation for National and Community Service’s contingency plan.

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor Natasha Derezinski-Choo.

What does it take to get teenagers to come to school on a Saturday morning?  After spending approximately forty hours at school each week plus time after school doing homework, I like having Saturdays for myself, and I think most students would agree.  In the average Millennials’ world, plagued by educational inflation and constant mantras to work harder, become smarter, and test better to get into college, free time is golden.  So golden, you’d think young people would keep it all to themselves, but of course young people are also using their time to do a world of good.  Which is why on a Saturday morning students representing high schools across Guilford County woke up early and came to school to learn about service learning.  

The Guilford County Schools (GCS) Character Education Department and the GCS Service-Learning Youth Council hosted the event, held at Ragsdale High School in Jamestown, NC—just outside of Greensboro, NC—.  In Guilford County, students are strongly encouraged to engage in service learning.  If, over the course of high school, students log 100 service learning hours they receive an Exemplary Award upon graduation, and if students track 250 hours they receive a Service-Learning Diploma.  This program encourages young people to play an active role in their community.  Service-learning is not only important for these students while in high school, but also to build experience when applying to universities and living better lives after graduation. 

Saturday’s Service-Learning Ambassador Training was focused on educating students on how to be Service-Learning Ambassadors.  Of the 25+ high schools in Guilford County, each school was invited to send up to five of their most dedicated students to learn about advocating for service learning among their peers. Additionally, schools could send two students who’d already been trained as Service-Learning Ambassadors to facilitate the training and workshops.  

Students learned how to engage in service learning and how meaningful volunteerism can facilitate a more well-rounded educational experience.  Students rotated in groups to attend several workshops to help them bring service learning back to their schools.  Organizations such as the Poetry Project, Habitat for Humanity, Horsepower, and many other local non-profits met with students to tell them about exciting opportunities they can get involved with.  Students also learned about the importance of youth voice in their actions and words.  Youth empowerment was an important focus of this particular workshop, demonstrating to young people the power and change they can unleash by engaging in volunteerism.  Working together, the Character-Education Department, experienced Service-Learning Ambassadors, and NobleHour’s own Keara Ziegerer trained students in the use of NobleHour’s hour-tracking software to help them track their impact in the community and progress toward their Service-Learning Diplomas. However, the goal of the program was not only to educate students about service learning, but also for them to take this knowledge back to their schools and cultivate service programs, hence the name Service-Learning Ambassadors.  As Ambassadors, students are not only working to be active in their community for their diplomas but are also active in their schools helping other students become more aware of the importance of service.

After the seven-hour program, students were tired and exhausted, but better for it.  Students ended the day reflecting on what they’d learned.  Senior Meredith Wettach commented, “I was so inspired to see all the students that are truly dedicated to giving back to our community.”  This week all these students will return to school—though probably not on Saturday for quite some time—and try to better themselves and peers.  They will become leaders.  

Last year, when I attended the training for the first time, it was in the early beginnings of my journey of committing to volunteerism.  As I reflect on the past year, I realize I have grown the most as a person in that time, and becoming a more confident leader and better individual are definitely in part the result of my service learning projects.

I’m inspired to see so many students taking initiative not only in their communities and schools but also in their own education.  Particularly, with the political unrest over budget cuts here in North Carolina, I’m glad to see that service learning has not been forgotten, and I wish more aspects of a complete, well rounded education were preserved for our generation in the face of economic hardship.  

At the end of the day, my hope is that students did not only come out of the training with a simple understanding of service learning and how hours are tracked, but with the knowledge that their time is as good as gold and that the number of hours one puts in is immeasurable compared to committing yourself to reach your own potential.   

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor Natasha Derezinski-Choo.

NobleHour is a growing network of organizations and members, and we want you to be part of the great work our members are finding and tracking here on NobleHour.  In today’s digital world, online presence is fundamental for any group or organization hoping to expand and succeed. Creating a free Organization Profile increases your visibility online by promoting your organization and connecting with an established network of individuals and communities.  

It combines the exposure of a Facebook Page, the customizability of a website, and the simplicity of a business card on a network of motivated individuals looking to improve the world.  An Organization Profile is ideal for local non-profits, businesses, schools, clubs, etc. looking to expand their outreach by increasing their presence online.  On NobleHour it’s easy and free for an organization to make itself visible and accessible to potential volunteers, interns, members, and employees, and expand your connectedness online by linking your NobleHour to social networking.  Organization Profiles allow you to build connections with people interested in being part of your success.  Learn how starting your free Organization Profile today can benefit your organization.

Creating an Organization Profile is free and simple.  Start by logging into NobleHour or creating a NobleHour account and clicking on the Organizations tab.  On the left select Add Organization and fill out information about the organization you represent to begin creating your profile.  A more detailed explanation can be found at the NobleHour Help Center.  With basic information about your organization filled out, you are ready to start personalizing your profile and expanding your outreach.  With the basics filled out, it’s time to explore the functions and benefits of an Organization Profile.

The first tab from the right, the Overview Tab, allows you to display basic information about your organization including a brief description, a mission statement, the type and category of your organization, location, and the ability to upload your organization’s logo to appear on your profile.  Any of this information can be easily edited by simply clicking of each category, updating it, and hitting save.  This is the first page a NobleHour citizen browsing your profile will see and the well-organized, concise display of information makes it easy to quickly get a sense of what your organization is about.  The Overview tab is customizable to non-profits, corporate companies, and everything in-between.  As it could be a NobleHour citizen’s first impression of your organization, the simplicity and adaptability of the Overview tab allows your online presence on NobleHour to accurately and fully reflect the goals and purpose of your organization.  Potential volunteers and applicants easily flip through and learn about organizations on the NobleHour network, and by connecting your Organization to NobleHour you will also connect with motivated NobleHour citizens.

The second tab on an Organization Profile is Opportunities.  Editing content on this tab allows you to post opportunities related to your organization.  Each time you create an Opportunity, a unique Opportunity code accompanies it so you can pass this on to members of your Organization for them to see more information about the Opportunity and track hours.  As an Admin for the Organization you will be notified when a member has submitted hours to verify.  When publicizing your opportunity on NobleHour, you can specify the type of opportunity, qualifications, location, time, contact information, and other important details potential participants need to know.  NobleHour citizens logged in on your area will see your posting on their NobleHour accounts even if they are not yet members of your organization, allowing you to link up with volunteers and applicants by sharing programs, events, and jobs.  Admins also have the opportunity to share Opportunities via Facebook, Twitter, and email, increasing your outreach online.  Opportunities are versatile and manageable.  They are applicable to short-term or long-term positions, and can be used to promote anything from volunteer to internship to paid job positions.

The next two tabs are the News and Contact Tab.  The News tab allows Admins to post update and news.  It gives you the ability to keep members of your organization  updated on news and events on your own personal news page.  The News page looks much like the Noble Blog page, allowing members to comment and share your news updates. The Contact tab is a mode of communication for online users looking for more information about your organization.  These two tabs create a two-way street of communication between an organization and its members.  The News page lets the Organization announce information and the commenting or contact features allow members to respond.  On these four tabs—Overview, Opportunities, News, and Contact—Admins are able to conveniently post and edit content.  The information is presented on the NobleHour network the same way it appears to the Admin so when contributing or sharing content, it is presented the same way it was created allowing organizations to clearly see how they are being represented online.

A Organization Profile becomes universal by allowing you to share the content you post on NobleHour elsewhere on the internet via Facebook, Twitter, and Email.  This feature links the different ways your organization networks online.  As an administrator of an Organization Profile, you have one additional tab on your profile that lets you adjust settings for your profile.  It also allows you to manage the membership of your Organization Profile, add other admins, and verify hours.  The free Organization Profile allows a great deal of freedom when connecting within the NobleHour network.  However, to benefit from more features on NobleHour, you can at anytime upgrade to a Community.  For more information on the differences between Organization capabilities and Communities, read “What is the Difference between an Organization and Community?”  

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor Natasha Derezinski-Choo.

Service is a key factor in a person’s individual health and well-being. Service can mean fulfillment in one’s life, which contributes to a more peaceful state of mind and overall happiness.  However, service is not just about the effects it has on an individual, but more importantly how the actions of several individuals can affect the greater community and the nation.  To analyze the health and well-being of the nation,“the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) hosts the most comprehensive annual collection of information on Volunteering and Civic Life in America and partners with the National Conference on Citizenship to produce an annual report of our nation’s civic health.”  The key findings of this report show that increased volunteering and service are the result of the work of millions of volunteers dedicated to their communities.

For the purpose of the study the CNCS collects its data from the “Current Population Survey (CPS) Volunteer and Civic Supplements conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).”  The data collected attests to the volunteer work of people aged 16 and up.  The CNCS formally identifies volunteers as “individuals who performed unpaid volunteer activities through or for an organization at any point during the 12-month period, from September 1 of the prior year through the survey week in September of the survey year.”  The report sheds positive news on the state of volunteerism, indicating that everyday people are helping overcome greater challenges by volunteering.  

In recent years, volunteers have stepped up to the challenge of meeting the needs of disadvantaged community members.  According to the report, volunteers engaged in several popular areas of service to meet their community’s needs. These include: fundraising (26.2%), feeding each other (23.6%), giving labor or transportation (20.3%), and educating students (18.2%).  All this work totals to about 7.9 billion hours of volunteerism.  The numbers are clear. Volunteerism contributes to a greater sense of community.  It creates neighborhoods and cities where people care for one another, help one another, and support one another; this shows in the 41.1% of people who trust most of the people in their neighborhood and the 15.6% who say they trust everyone in their neighborhood. When people help each other and rely on each other, the build trust between each other and feel safer in their surroundings.

The report also found an increase in volunteers in response to the devastating affects of Hurricane Sandy.  Volunteering is the greatest contribution and individual can give to a community because it asks of a person to give of themselves what they find missing in the world around them.  With two out of three people reporting they served by doing favors for neighbors, this builds a correlation between volunteerism and better communities.  In a world where technology can make it easy to isolate oneself from the outside, people have not lost what it means to be human by continuing to volunteer.  

In addition to a greater sense of community, mass volunteerism is also conducive to family life. With almost 90% of volunteers reporting they eat dinner with their family a few or more times a week, close families are fitting with a civically engaged population.  High rates of volunteering are found among parents, with parents being more likely to volunteer than non-parents in the same age group.  Parents are most often volunteering at organizations to help their children such as schools or youth services.  The top five states where parents volunteer include Utah, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and “working mothers are a key part of volunteering parents, as nearly four in 10 (38%) volunteered.”  The saying “it takes a village to raise a child” comes to mind when contemplating these stats.  Parents, in response to shortages in funding for schools and children’s programs, dedicate themselves and extending their parental commitments to the greater community.  Volunteerism is not only increasing, but it is also increasing for the betterment of children.  Additionally, parents who volunteer will likely influence their children to also volunteer as youth and later in their lives.  

By presenting these statistics, CNCS encourages everyday people to take part in their communities so that the rate of volunteerism will continue to rise along with the civic health of the nation.  They encourage you to take part by following the example of the millions of parent volunteers to help youth.  This can be done by donating time, resources, and encouragement to improving the self-esteem and education of young people.  The CNCS also suggests taking part in disaster relief efforts or helping veterans and senior citizens. A list of local volunteer opportunities can be found on NobleHour.

The proof that volunteerism and civic engagement are rising is encouraging.  If volunteering rates are improving, the communities are improving, and individuals are working together toward a greater cause.  For once, one should be encouraged to “follow the crowd” and engage in civic service. By doing so, each individual can contribute to a “culture of citizenship, service, and responsibility” that successfully tackles everyday issues within a community.  Sometimes as a volunteer, it’s easy to wonder if one person can truly make an impact.  Cumulatively, the impact is clear.  People steadfastly working together is making for communities where people trust each other, depend on each other, and befriend each other.  The results are back and the nation’s civic health is doing well.  The numbers are good, and they can only get better.  Keep searching on NobleHour for ways to cultivate and raise volunteerism.  

“Imagine all the people sharing all the world . . . And the world will live as one.” –John Lennon, “Imagine”

On Sunday, NobleHour awarded three scholarships to students at Guilford County Schools’ annual “Cool to Serve” event. Hundreds of graduates attended the event, which celebrated the class of 2013’s service-learning accomplishments.

Jose Oliva received the NobleHour Platinum Award - $1,000 for having the "Most Impactful Service-Learning Project", Austin Elmore won $500 for the "Best Social/Global Impact Service-Learning Project, and Billy Hawkains won $250 for the Best Community/Civic Engagement Service-Learning Project. 

“...For me, helping people is not about awards, money, hours or anything,” said Oliva in an interview with The News & Record. 

“...When I think about service, I think about people smiling.”

To date, Guilford County students have logged more than 250,000 hours using NobleHour. In addition to the scholarships, students who served more than 225 hours earned a Service-Learning Diploma, and those with more than 100 hours received a Service-Learning Exemplary Award. In order to qualify for recognition, the students’ service must be unpaid, address a community need, and include investigation, preparation and planning, action, reflection, and demonstration components. NobleHour facilitates these requirements through its comprehensive database, hour tracking, and reflection tools.

“By using NobleHour we are able to capture the economic impact our students make within the community.” said Yvonne Foster, Character Development & Service-Learning Coordinator for Guilford County Schools.

The event was put on by the GCS Character Development team, which promotes character education, civic education, and service learning in order to “equip students with the tools and motivation necessary to be the change they wish to see in the world.”

"It is such a heartwarming feeling to see youth involved and for the right reasons!" said Foster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image via The News & Record. 

About NobleHour

NobleHour is based in Lakeland, FL and was started by a team of knowledgeable business investors, representing over 70 years of unparalleled entrepreneurial and business experience. They developed SweatMonkey.org in 2005 as an online service learning management platform for students and schools. SweatMonkey was used by countless organizations such as the YMCA, the SPCA, the United Way of North Central Florida, and the University of Florida. SweatMonkey was rebranded and launched in 2012 as NobleHour.com, an engaging online community platform that includes content sharing, a database of volunteer and job opportunities and events, hour tracking tools for tracking community service hours, and community impact measurement tools. NobleHour's mission is to provide an engaging platform to help connect people with their communities to empower civic engagement. For more information visit www.noblehour.com.

 

 

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor Natasha Derezinski-Choo.

Volunteering teaches its participants to become more aware of the impact of their actions on the community.  Often when we think of community, we refer to local communities, but volunteering can transcend borders across the global community.  During the summer, many volunteers choose to use their vacation time to help communities in the developing world.  A variety of programs exist to connect volunteers with opportunities abroad, and, though the volunteers have the best intentions, these efforts can sometimes be misguided.  To truly make an impact on a community, volunteers should pay close attention to how their actions will negatively or positively affect a community. 

The benefits of volunteering abroad are almost self-explanatory at face value.  Volunteers gain a global perspective, visit a new part of the world, immerse themselves in a different culture and language, all the while engaging in service and helping developing areas.  It’s easy to see how volunteers would be sold on the idea of going overseas, and it is possible to make a positive impact - just not as easily as it seems.  What some don’t foresee is that one simply can’t just fly off and try to change a community.  It takes careful planning, time, and a real understanding of the current situation in a community before one can attempt to help it.  Before quickly selecting a volunteer program this summer, it’s vital to have a full understanding of how going abroad could have inadvertent negative results and how to avoid these by engaging in meaningful and impactful service projects. 

It’s important to note that many would criticize volunteering abroad because of the lack of sustainability resulting from a long-distance project.  There is a careful balance between helping a community get through the day, or empowering it so that one day it can be self-sufficient.  It’s the difference between bringing food to last a few weeks and helping a community rebuild its irrigation system so it can grow and sell its own food for generations to come.  The latter makes for a service-learning project that is sustainable because both parties are benefiting.  When looking for service opportunities abroad, volunteers should do proper research to ensure that the impact of their service will empower a community by helping lift it from poverty or hardship permanently, rather than temporarily alleviating some of the stress on the community. 

“The harsh truth is that ‘voluntourism’ is more about the self-fulfilment of westerners than the needs of developing nations.” - Ian Birrel, columnist and foreign correspondent.

Critics would also challenge the amount of money being put into volunteerism abroad.  With the hundreds and thousands of dollars people spend for their travel and accommodations while volunteering, many warn against “the dark side of our desire to help the developing world” as put by Ian Birrel in his article “Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do”.  Birrel warns that “orphanages are a booming business trading on guilt [. . .] Those ‘orphans’ might have been bought from impoverished parents [. . . ]An official study found just a quarter of children in these so-called orphanages have actually lost both parents. And these private ventures are proliferating fast.”  The trouble with so many more tourists wanting to enrich their vacations with volunteering is that it becomes a disturbing industry where locals can profit on Westerners’ consciences.  Thousands of organizations encourage people to volunteer with their organization, but often these short excursions do more harm for local communities in the developing world. They take away jobs from skilled locals and give them to volunteers who will pay to work there.  Often the money spent by volunteers to travel abroad would be better used cultivating new industries and building infrastructure to help developing nations grow, rather than keeping them dependent on the developed world.

To avoid these misguided volunteering ventures, be sure to preform in-depth research on the program before hand.  Consider how impactful you want your volunteering to be.  Is the program allowing you to be proactive in the planning and orchestration of the project?  Will the local community truly benefit for years to come? Are you learning new skills, and are the native people learning new skills that will help them help themselves?  What does the developing community already have that can help them, and what do they need to improve their lives? These are challenging questions, and oftentimes it’s easier for one to continue helping in one's own community rather than one abroad. 

Both at home and abroad, volunteers are meant to fill in the missing pieces in a community, not supplement what it can do by itself.  The end result should be giving a foreign community the ability to help itself rather than keeping it dependent on aid from the developed world.  Volunteers should strive to bring the resources and skills that combat the issues hindering a community’s ability to prosper and live better quality lives.  Eventually volunteers have to return home, but the communities they visit and the lives they attempt to touch will remain.  Before they leave, their actions should echo in the lasting improvements helped to achieve.  This summer, continue to track your Noble Impact on NobleHour both at home and abroad. 

On Wednesday, NobleHour will exhibit its software for community engagement at the 2013 Nonprofit Summit, put on by the Nonprofit Center of North Central Florida and the University of Florida Department of Family, Youth & Community Sciences. The summit will take place at Emerson Alumni Hall from 8am-5pm.

 The Nonprofit Summit is the North Central Florida’s largest conference for nonprofit professionals, board members, community leaders and students.  Speakers at the conference include Kari Saratovsky, author of “ Cause for Change: The Why and How of Nonprofit Millennial Engagement”; Angela Garcia, Director of Community Engagement and Service-Learning in the UF Center for Leadership and Service; and Theresa Beachy, Executive Director of Peaceful Paths Domestic Abuse Network, Inc.  Sessions will address a range of topics, such as: nonprofit engagement, communication, cultural diversity, volunteerism, risk management, financial preparation, and student leadership.

 The conference aims to empower nonprofit leaders to “strengthen their organizations through education, collaboration, and innovation.” These goals are assisted with NobleHour’s ability to connect educators, students, and nonprofits together to create a more educated, innovative, and impactful communities.

 Using NobleHour, non-profits can post opportunities, events, news, and resources with a growing network of volunteers. They can also manage their own volunteers, track volunteer hours, and generate comprehensive reports on their community impact.

 

About Nonprofit Center of North Central Florida
The Nonprofit Center of North Central Florida’s mission is to cultivate support, growth and community awareness for nonprofit organizations in the North Central Florida region. The Nonprofit Center focuses on providing nonprofit organizations with education, resources and advocacy to assist in fulfilling their missions. For more information please visit www.ncncf.org.

About NobleHour
NobleHour is based in Lakeland, FL and was started by a team of knowledgeable business investors, representing over 70 years of unparalleled entrepreneurial and business experience. They developed SweatMonkey.org in 2005 as an online service learning management platform for students and schools. SweatMonkey was used by countless organizations such as the YMCA, the SPCA, the United Way of North Central Florida, and the University of Florida. SweatMonkey was rebranded and launched in 2012 as NobleHour.com, an engaging online community platform that includes content sharing, a database of volunteer and job opportunities and events, hour tracking tools for tracking community service hours, and community impact measurement tools. NobleHour's mission is to provide an engaging platform to help connect people with their communities to empower civic engagement. For more information visit www.noblehour.com.

This post was written by NobleHour Special Contributor and engaged Millennial, Natasha Derezinski-Choo

A great debate has arisen over the character of the next generation. People born after 1980 are defined as the “Millennial” generation because these young people, now in their teens and twenties, will be the first to come to the age of maturity in the new millennium.  This generation is also sometimes called Generation Y in reference to its succession of Generation X (1965-1980).  Analysts of this new generation are divided. Skeptics have deemed it lazy, narcissistic, and in an article by Tom Jacobs, downright delusional.  However, research also points to the fact that the average twenty-first century “youngster” is also more educated and accepting than his or her predecessor Generation X or parents, the Baby Boomer Generation.  The sweeping generalizations looking down upon Millennials are often one-sided and fail to account for the progressive nature and potential of young people.

The article “Are millennials delusional?” by Tom Jacobs portrays Millennials in an unjustly negative manner.  Jacobs focuses on the consumptive and material expectations of young people to argue that they are unrealistic and, as the title suggests, delusional.  Work ethic and entitlement are two of the primary criticisms.  He quotes that teens are increasingly more expectant of material gain without having to put in the proper amount of effort.  Jacobs continues to analyze materialism as a “disturbing trend” among youth, supported by a study by psychologist and researchers Jean Twenge and Tim Kasser which found a rise in material concern through a survey that asked about the importance of owning possessions such as a new car or a house.  The article has some hypocritical implications.  It begins by gauging a generation’s personality based on its willingness to earn money, and then goes on to criticize it for its materialism.  In fact, the article does not address the other positive impacts that young people are making each day and only takes into account consumptive tendencies, while other negative portrayals also seek to criticize youngsters’ personalities.   

In the cover article for Time magazine, Joel Stein attacks the narcissistic nature of “The Me Me Me Generation”.  Stein opens with “the cold, hard data” stating that “the incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that's now 65 or older, according to the National Institutes of Health.”  However,  further studies contradict this idea: In “It Is Developmental Me, Not Generation Me" Brent W. Roberts. Grant Edmonds, and Emily Grijalva say that “that age changes in narcissism are both replicable and comparatively large in comparison to generational changes in narcissism. This leads to the conclusion that every generation is Generation Me, as every generation of younger people are more narcissistic than their elders”.  In Elspeth Reeve’s rebuttal of Stein’s article, she explains, in layman’s terms, that this means, “Basically, it's not that people born after 1980 are narcissists, it's that young people are narcissists, and they get over themselves as they get older.”  Like people, every generation of youth has its flaws and naiveties, but it would be highly inaccurate to deem any generation faulty without considering its revolutionary and progressive nature during its reign as “the next generation”.  

Millennials should be praised for their innovative and forward-thinking demeanor.  Pew Research Center’s report entitled “Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change” found that Millennials are more educated than their predecessors.  In 2009, males aged 18-28 reported 34% attained some college education and 15% had four-year degrees or higher.  This is a dramatic increase from the 25% the Baby Boomer males who received some college education and a significant increase from the 13% with four-year degrees or higher.  Female education saw an even greater increase.  In 1978, Boomers reported that 11% had four-year degrees.  In 1995, Generation X reported 15%, and in 2009 Millennials reported 20%, almost double the percentage of their parents.  Millennials are certainly not lazy or oblivious.  They are beginning to experience and change the world.  This generation is the most educated generation in American history, and will go on to becoming active and innovative problem-solvers in the new millennium.  

Despite economic hardships and difficulty finding employment in entering the workforce, young people are more likely to engage in volunteerism than previous generations.  The Pew Research Center found that 52% of Millennials reported volunteering in the past twelve months, more than the older generations surveyed.  Young people are innovative and impactful within the greater community.  Forbes’ article “How The Next Generation Of Wealth Is Revolutionizing Philanthropy As We Know It” asserts that “philanthropy extends far beyond just writing a check or lending your name to a charity. These individuals [millennials] have dedicated their lives to harnessing the venture capital mindset in order to ensure the success of their charitable giving.”  Millennials are revolutionizing  the nonprofit sector by not only donating funds, but also employing their time and energy to supporting charitable causes.  

Millennials’ progressive social and political outlooks will change the face of policy-making and adapt it to twenty-first century realities.  Millennials were reported to be more tolerant towards gay-rights, supportive of equal opportunities for minorities, and accepting of diversity of family structure, such as single-mother families or divorced parents.  Pew reported that youth were just as likely to take political action on these issues as their older counterparts.  Millennials are challenging the stereotype of laziness and apathy by making a Noble Impact through volunteerism and civic engagement.  

The next generation possesses some of the greatest tools to solve the great social, political, and economic crises being handed to them.  In this globalized world, the evolution of the Internet and improved communication will no doubt be an incredible tool in the Millennials' success.  Every generation is handed problems of the past.  In the last century, new generations faced, in brief terms, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, and the Cold War.  Today it is terrorism, human rights, global warming, and the recessions of a post-industrial economy.  When faced with such conflicts, young people cannot help but be optimistic toward their potential.  Rather than putting them down, older generations should also begin to accept and cultivate the future because, regardless, it looks like you’re stuck with us.