100 Volunteer Hours

Today I spent the afternoon in some volunteer work I needed to catch up on. I am the editor for the Seattle Association for Women in Science (AWIS) newsletter, which means that at least quarterly, I have to sit down and edit some documents, exchange flurries of emails and get some files organized. It's not unlike my real job (as a writer), and it's nice to be able to schedule it for when I have time. What I'm getting at here, is this was a fairly routine experience.

And as I was updating the totals on my spreadsheet (which I love doing), I noticed it updated to 104 hours. That's a lot of time! And since what I really love about the spreadsheet are the metrics, let me break it down for you. From the totals on the thermometer (currently $7,345.27), which is combined hours and dollars, about half of that is hours, and half dollars. About 57 of those hours, I've been involved in (I will track combined hours for something Matt & I or myself and others do, so it's less lines on the spreadsheet).

Just for the record, I think we can compare the amount of volunteer time I've racked up this year to the amount of volunteer time I did last year, which was basically only my work with AWIS. Or ~4 hours a month. In the 5 months since I started tracking, I've basically doubled my own efforts, and some how talked others into matching my volunteer efforts.  Go us!

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That being said, having spent a sunny Saturday in my office, I've got to get serious about finding some outdoor volunteer opportunities. And it looks like the pub crawl is going to fall through- but I'd like to get a group together for some type of volunteer project: trail maintenance? flash mob at the blood bank? 5K? I'm not sure, so if you have ideas, let me know.

Dinner Donor

Just dropping a line here to say that I did take dinner to the Landing last night. Things worked out that I didn't have much help (except for a clutch moment where Matt helped me slice peaches so I could get a crisp into the oven before the lasagna). Since it was pouring buckets, they were expecting a pretty full house, and warm lasagna seemed like the right thing to bring. While it's neat to feel like I can cook for 15 people by myself, it was way more fun when I had help.

There were lots of staff hanging around at my delivery (there was a basketball game on?), and I am super curious about who these people are. They always act like I'm bringing them something really special- like it's the best stuff they've seen all week. By the time dinner is loaded into my car, I'm always very self conscious: Four lasagnas and 24 rolls. What do normal people eat for dinner? I'm sure they've been told that little bit of enthusiasm makes volunteers like me really happy to come by. What can I say, it works.

Another HUGE Milestone- 20%

Big news- we hit 20% of the goal last month.  That means that in May, we did 10%.  THat's huge! If we can sustain 10% of the goal every month- we'll be done in EIGHT MONTHS.

Of course, there were some (great!) reasons that May was so strong that may not be true through the summer. Seattle Big Give encouraged me to give away a fair part of my donation budget early. My brother's volunteer gig with Austin Partners in Education is on summer break (thanks Noel!). There were Mother's Day gifts in donations.  So, we gotta get/stay serious about keeping up this momentum through the summer.  I'll be looking for some trail work myself, and some more 5Ks.  But mostly GIANT, gushy Thank YOUs to everyone who has helped push the thermometer up this high, this quick!  It's awesome!