Lessons from the 2012 Chicago Cares Serve-a-thon
June 9, 2012 saw over 4,300 volunteers come together, dedicating more than 20,000 hours of service to 24 sites across the city. Our efforts had a meaningful impact on the lives of 15,000 Chicago Public School students and raised over $625,000 to support the more than 200 group volunteer programs Chicago Cares provides every month.
Chicago Cares strives to provide every volunteer with a day of positive, meaningful service and to make that happen it is important that we get feedback from our volunteers and partner schools. All Serve-a-thon participants are asked to complete evaluations to help us continually improve upon this annual event.
Our staff takes the time to review each and every evaluation so that we can better understand the successes and challenges experienced at Serve-a-thon. We use the collected information as a roadmap in future planning, ensuring that we take steps to address any issues that arose and continue to incorporate those practices that provided the best experience for our volunteers and partners.
Below is a summary of the information collected through this year’s Serve-a-thon evaluation. We want to thank everyone who took the time to complete the survey, your participation will help to ensure that Chicago Cares can continue to bring innovative and meaningful service opportunities to people throughout our city!
2012 Serve-a-thon Evaluation Feedback
Selected Survey Quotes from Volunteers
- “I really enjoyed myself. It was my first time giving back to the community.”
- “Everybody was co-operative AND worked very hard.”
- “Painting projects were too large to accomplish.”
- “The planter project was awesome. It gave me great satisfaction in building a project from the ground up to completion. The finished project and beautiful flowers placed in the planters made the school look better.”
- “Impressed with how much the school appreciated our help.”
- “Was pretty good. Could have used actual paint brushes and dropcloths. (Both are reuseable when cleaned) Also, provide a 5 minute painting demo from an actual painter, lots of people have no idea what they’re doing.”
- “We were the stair masters!”
- “It was a great experience and a great feeling to know many people benefit from our work!”
- “It’s a great networking opportunity and met great, wonderful, and talented people.”
- “Overall it was great. Nice to see the teachers, students and other staff from the school at the event.”
Selected Quotes from School Principals
“You’re not just here painting walls today, you are changing lives. When everyone came on the buses I’m sure they saw boarded up buildings. On the news every night you hear about all of the bad things that are happening in Englewood but there’s a lot of good happening in Englewood, too. Especially today, [Serve-a-thon] is one of the best things that could ever happen for our students.” -Eric Dockery, Principal, Dewey Academy
“It has been an awesome day! It means so much to have volunteers come in and contribute their time to change the culture and climate here at our school. They’re really making it better for our students and our community.” -Sonja Spiller, Principal, Jackie Robinson Elementary
I was one of the volunteers for this years Serve-a-Thon and I am also a HS counselor. I was wondering how does a school go about becoming one of the schools that Chicago Cares places on their “needs volunteers” list. I know my school could use some of the beautification that the Chicago Cares volunteers provide to lift their spirits as we begin the new school year.
Thank you!
Shalina
August 12, 2012
Thanks so much for your comment, we’re glad you could join us at Serve-a-thon.
If a school wants to be considered for Serve-a-thon they should to go to our website and fill out a partner application http://www.chicagocares.org/partner_become.
chicagocares
August 16, 2012
Thank you!
Shalina
August 16, 2012