Friday, November 19, 2010

A safe return from the HandsOn AmeriCorps conference in Georgia

The four days spent south of the Mason-Dixon served as a wonderful opportunity to break from the day to day and reenergize coming into the holiday season.  Per usual the focus was encouraging and recruiting volunteers and volunteer leaders.  We sometimes forget how many wonderful opportunities surround us all the time and all it takes is a little follow through to make things happen. 

One of our roles as AmeriCorps volunteers is to help make sure community resources are being used to their fullest potential.  This includes people who could be a tremendous asset to their community but might not currently be engaged to their fullest capacity.  It’s not that these people have a deep-seeded aversion to volunteering, or that they simply are too busy living their own lives to volunteer it is only the inertia of apathy that is holding them back.  This is where the committed community engagers need to take action, creating inertia toward action.  Just as it is difficult to get someone moving who isn’t used to taking action, it is also difficult to stop those that have a full head of steam behind them, taking action, making their community a better place. 

This is what I really took from the conference in Georgia the incredible power and the multiplier effect of encouraging individuals with a noble purpose in mind.

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