In a recent conversation, a valued GraceWorks volunteer described himself as a just a volunteer. Volunteers at GraceWorks, (and for that matter anywhere else they serve in community) are worth their weight in gold! In the first quarter of our July/June fiscal year, volunteers gave over 8,547 hours of their time, thereby saving GraceWorks $187,785, and thus driving our staff and operational costs down. The lower our costs the more of your donor dollars can go to programming. Right now, the contributions of time by Volunteers are part of the reason 88% of all donations can go toward programming.
Volunteers use these donated hours to impact all of GraceWorks in major ways! Volunteers govern the very policies and finances of GraceWorks as well as hire, manage, mentor, and direct the CEO as Board members. Volunteers are the very face of our Neighbor serving Neighbor mission as they listen, vet, comfort and pray with those who come in seeking food, shelter, or support as they serve as GraceWorkers. It is Volunteers who pick up food donations, stock our Food Pantry shelves, walk Neighbors through the Food Pantry, or run food carts out to them for curbside food service. Volunteers stand in all kinds of weather year-round to organize and place food in the cars of our hungry Neighbors at our monthly Mobile Food Pantry. Volunteers help keep our Thrift Store looking beautiful and thus playing a crucial role in GraceWorks winning the Sizzle Award as best Thrift Store in Williamson County for multiple years in a row. A Volunteer even manages our Boutique, whose numbers last month outsold the furniture store even though it carries inventory that is naturally higher priced!
Volunteers help design theme and content for our annual April fundraiser dinner. Volunteers plan, promote and recruit for our annual Golf Fore fundraiser causing its giving to in some years to rival that of the dinner. Volunteers mark out routes, hand out registration packets, t shirts and man water stations along the route of the Turkey Trot. Volunteers inventory gifts, stocking shelves, wrap gifts, shop, and pray with Neighbors at The Manger.
Volunteers purchased our two freezers in the warehouse, thereby giving us the capacity to offer our Neighbors more meats and other high protein items (yes and sometimes ice cream 😊. And as if this wasn’t enough, Volunteers give financially to their own special, The Insider’s Fund, to encourage the community at large to also give by matching what they gave. I do hope that in honor of all that they do, you would generously respond to the invitation to match their giving when it arrives in your mailboxes later this month.
Just a Volunteer my eye… Volunteers are the hands and the heart of GraceWorks! They do all that is mentioned here and more! We could not do our work without them. So, if you are reading this and you are a Volunteer, I can’t thank you enough. If you are reading this and you are not a Volunteer, just keep in mind you can be (wink, wink). There are many Volunteer opportunities just waiting for you to say yes to. Please click HERE to see if God is calling you to serve in this way!
Volunteers you rock!
Gratefully Yours,
