The Give a Day Thread~Share Your Experience

[KristiMc]

We just dropped off 3 blankets for Project Linus this morning. It was fun working on them the last few days and it was a good experience for my 8 year old to see that the blanket he helped to make is going to kids at our local children's hospital.

They had such a response to this activity that they had to move the drop-off to a larger church to accommodate. There were at least 200 blankets in the room.

 

[disneynutsss]

If you sign up for a program that can have kids do they each get a voucher too for doing it with me? Or is it just me that would get it?

yes, make sure you put every persons name down so you get the credit for all of them.

 

[pixiemagic30]

We worked with Hands-On Orlando this morning and really enjoyed the experience. We worked really hard cleaning up a small garden/park area. Others painted a mural and set up a computer lab. It was really cool, we had an opening ceremony with various introductions that included Goofy and the Jamminators! Radio Disney was also on hand piping in music for us to work to! When we signed out, we received our tickets on the spot! Overall, it was an experience that I wanted my kids to have and they are eager to volunteer more often! Yeah!

 

[yellownovawife]

My 15 year old and I worked at a food bank about an hour away from our home. They would not let my 10 year old daughter come along as it was for 15 and up. It was through an agency called "Humanity First." We met some nice people and even though my daughter and I both do a lot of different volunteer work this was a great experience for us o share together. We are excited to be getting the GAD fastpass to share with my husband and other daughter for two days of our upcoming trip. Now we just have to decide which parks to use them at! We are going in three weeks so I will report back how it goes!

 

[hockeybabe]

Our family of four just completed our volunteering today. We signed up last Saturday, got an email from the organization on Monday, were scheduled by Wednesday (due to technical errors on the HandsOn site), and went in for our 5 hour shift today, though they let us go after 2 hours. There were two other groups/families there, one group of 4 and one of 2. This was their first weekend, and they weren't prepared for us to be as efficient. They are a thrift store located in Dallas, our family sorted clothes, changed out some shelving and moved some furniture and donations to the staging area. Sorting through clothes, including underwear and socks, was not exactly "fun", but it wasn't as bad as I thought I might be, we all had a great sense of humor about it, as well as being grateful for what we have in life. The other family was cleaning, vaccuming, and dusting, and the other two were working with the clothing racks, making sure everything was hanging up nicely and where it should be. They say they have enough volunteers signed up until April, but we may go back some time later in the year and volunteer again. The organization is a really good one, some of their projects include running a food pantry, several apartment complexes for homeless unhireables, and a program for foster kids who, when they turn 18, get kicked out of the foster care program, so they start with them at 16 to help them learn life skills, as well as offer housing and education for those who aren't established by the time they grow out of the foster care program. They can buy 7 pounds of food for $1, and $.94 of every dollar they get through donations or sales at the store goes to the charity. It's a pretty good cause, and I would have never known about it without Disney, and thanks to Disney, they will get all of the volunteers they need for this year, anyway, and maybe some who will return on their own, like my family.

Looking forward to getting our vouchers for FP's for our upcomng trip, but even without them, it was a good experience.

 

[5stljayhawks]

Yesterday the SDW and I volunteered for Restore St. Charles www.restorestcharles.org - St. Charles, Missouri and went to the Emmaus House www.emmaushomes.org for a little painting. We were the first volunteers to show up and it was amazing watching a gymnasium fill up. That is right, this was not a small group of people, in fact during the 9 years or so Restore St. Charles has been in operation, the largest group of volunteers assembled was around 60 people and this was through the efforts of two different churches. Yesterday RSC expected about 90 folks, to help on about 8 or 9 locations.

Who ever thought that the House of the Mouse, had the power to change the life’s of so many. I hope Disney continues this program and would remove the restrictions on the tickets.

Thanks to all of those who have or going to volunteer.

 

[Bearvet]

Our volunteer day is tomorrow! Unfortunately we're expecting a snow storm tonight into tomorrow, so I hope it's not cancelled!

This is an MLK community service day - they expect 600-700 volunteers! It looks like they have a speaker or two and breakfast. Then we choose a project to work on - making fleece blankets, assembling care packages for cancer patients, painting step stools for seniors, etc. This is perfect for my group which ranges from 3 teenage boys to a 70yo woman! This runs from 9am to noon and is held in a middle school.

We're so excited about this opportunity!

 

[BCBug]

I signed my family up for Project Linus (PL) in the next county, we made our blankets, and my husband dropped them off on Tuesday. We got our vouchers today (Sunday). Here's the magic: we made 5 blankets, 3 of which were "little boy" blankets in fun patterns. I had extra fleece, so I made 3 little matching pillows to go with these boy blankets. I got an email from the PL coordinator Tuesday night saying she had received a call about an hour before my husband dropped off our blankets, asking for help for 3 little boys who had just lost their mother. She took these boys our blankets, she said they just seemed extra special with the matching pillows. So 3 of our blankets went to a good home on the very day we dropped them off. The PL coordinator said sometimes things just work out.

 

[DisneyWisher]

I signed my family up for Project Linus (PL) in the next county, we made our blankets, and my husband dropped them off on Tuesday. We got our vouchers today (Sunday). Here's the magic: we made 5 blankets, 3 of which were "little boy" blankets in fun patterns. I had extra fleece, so I made 3 little matching pillows to go with these boy blankets. I got an email from the PL coordinator Tuesday night saying she had received a call about an hour before my husband dropped off our blankets, asking for help for 3 little boys who had just lost their mother. She took these boys our blankets, she said they just seemed extra special with the matching pillows. So 3 of our blankets went to a good home on the very day we dropped them off. The PL coordinator said sometimes things just work out.

How wonderful that you must feel, to know that you brought a bright spot to those little boys lives. Well done!

We volunteered yesterday morning, we cleaned up a local beach. WOW there were tons of cigarette butts (told my 16 yr old this is what underage smokers should have to do when caught) after 30 minutes the bag smelled like an ashtray. DD16 went to pick up what she thought was a piece of blue plastic, when I saw it I yelled for her to put it down, it was a man-of-war. There were tons of them along the shoreline. I was very proud of DD16, she willingly got up at 6:30am on a Saturday without any problems (you know how teenagers can be). She even took it upon herself to speak with the coordinator about coming back to volunteer again for her service hours she needs for High School.

 

[Brer Shay]

We had six to volunteer - DH & I as well as 11, 10, 9, & 6 year olds. We were able to do two different projects to cover us. First was with Project Linus - we made a total of eight blankets (technically 2 each for four of our group, though we all worked together) and dropped them off on Friday, January 15. The other was with our local public television station where my DD6 and I worked on a mailing and answered phones on Wednesday, January 13. We had a wonderful time and, once the GAD GADD activity dies off, will likely be able to go in to help again. The sponsors both certified our activity on Friday and I got our vouchers this morning! My kids don't know yet that this activity had anything to do with Disney. I think we'll tell them about the trip by showing them the vouchers! (They're pretty celebratory for a voucher.)

 

[Kira G.]

I just went with my family to a MLK neighborhood clean-up, as part of the Ray of Hope Project here in Philadelphia, http://www.rayofhopeproject.org/ . We helped to clean up a playground area in the Frankford neighborhood - we painted out graffiti and spruced up the playground equipment. It was a great experience, very well-organized and with lots of participation (I think there were 70-80 people there of all ages).

I have wanted to do something like this for a long time, and I am really thrilled that Disney put this together. I loved how easy it was for me to connect with volunteer opportunities that welcomed my whole family (I know that we are at an advantage being in a major city). We may not even use our tickets - right now we have no plans to go to Disney this year - so that was really not what it was about for us. In fact, I love the idea of donating the tickets as well.

All in all I am very happy with how this went for my family, and hope to do something like this again soon!

 

[bobbiwoz]

DH and I helped out with a food drive in Miami Valley. He and I were shift photographers. We went to 5 sites throughout the county taking pictures and chatting with the volunteers who were collecting food. It was very well organized and we told the coordinator that we would be happy to help out at another food drive if they have one.

I am very thankful to have had the opportunity to help.

Bobbi

PS. I love the idea of Project Linus, and have mentioned it to friends who have wondered what they could do.

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

We volunteered for King Day making paper flowers and cards to be delivered to residential facilities on Valentines Day. We had a wonderful experience, if you are interested in details, I have pics and more of what we did in my PreTrip Report (link in my siggie)

My hat is off to WDW for starting this program and inspiring people to give of themselves. Once you do it, you only want to do more and more!

 

[mouselovenfamily]

We shipped our blankets off today. it was a fun project we were able to due with our teens. Our 13 year olds were able to work on it two so it worked out great. I'll let ya know when we get our vouchers. The blankets should arrive to the destination by Thursday.

As we were shopping for our blanket material we were so picky! It was funny how much thought we put in to it knowing we would never really know who gets the blankets! Hopefully they all get good homes!!

 

[Bearvet]

Well, we did our service day yesterday - just left the house earlier than normal due to the snow. We dropped off our donations, had breakfast (they provided) and checked in at the "Disney" table. Then there was a speaker in the auditorium (about 30 min) then we went into the gym where activites were set up. We worked on tying fleece blankets until they were all done - unfortunately most activities ran out of supplies within an hour. So we didn't even spend as much time working as we thought we would.

I did receive an email from the volunteer organization today saying they would contact Disney to verify that we completed our service. So we'll see how long it take to get the voucher.

I almost feel guilty - like we didn't really do enough to warrant the voucher. But I guess we signed up and showed up, so we did what was asked. So, as far as I can tell, everything went very smoothly.....

 

[Bearvet]

Received our email with vouchers this AM! It took less than a week!

 

[MHSweb79]

After completely giving up on getting any GAD opportunity before our trip to see my folks in West Palm the first week of March, I got a call from Habitat for Humanity, which I contacted several weeks ago. (Nobody else has responded and I've been trying since practically January 1.) My folks have resident AP's so if we can bring free admission, it would be fabulous.

Anyway, Habitat's having "a build" (see, I'm getting the lingo already!) just 20 minutes away on Feb. 13. So I signed us all up and I'm pretty excited. We've done a lot of community service, but never Habitat so I'm really looking forward to it. My husband is very handy, and grieving from some pretty terrible losses last year, so I'm kind of hoping he'll get hooked and volunteer for some other weekends too. It would do him good to do good, you know?

Now, since we're in New England, I'm hoping we don't get a snowstorm on that weekend....

 

[DisMomAmy]

I signed our family up on 1/2/10 to make a donation collection box for Lil' MDGs, an organization here in NH that collects money to purchase things for kids overseas... mosquito nets for AIDS orphans in Africa, backpacks for kids going back to school in Iraq & a bunch of other stuff. We made/decorated a collection box then collected change IN OUR HOME for a week. We submitted pictures of us decorating the box along with our donation check for the money collected just after 1/10 (which was our official volunteering date). I emailed photos & mailed the check on Monday 1/11 and received our vouchers on Thursday 1/14.

This project seemed way too easy, but I was glad that our DS6 could participate - he actually did most of the decorating! Our DS9 has autism and I wasn't even going to attempt to drag him along on a volunteer opportunity so it was great that he was able to participate at home! We made a big deal of talking about why we were doing this & that it was about much more than getting free tickets!

I can't wait to redeem our vouchers - hopefully we won't have any trouble upgrading them to 6 day park hoppers and we can save $300 on our tickets!

I also can't wait to start reading about people who have visited the World with their vouchers!

 

[lindsroc]

Are you limited to one free ticket per person for the year? Meaning, if we volunteer for more than one opportunity...would we be able to get 2 tickets each or no? Also, our youngest is 5... I didnt see any opportunities that listed under 6 as being an option, does anyone know of any? We volunteer already, for Boston Terrier Rescue, French Bulldog Rescue, and the March of Dimes so I think this is a great idea that Disney has.

 

[Fastpaks]

We signed up for Project Linus in St Louis. My family as well as my sister's family all participated this afternoon. Our "due" date wasn't until next week. In total, we did 12 blankets (with 2 more to come from another family member). My son (6) insisted on doing his own and did a decent job. Some of the "scraps" were use to tie little bows on the blankets. We had so much fun that we thought about doing this again on our own time some day.