dear writers: this is *not* volunteering

@charynpfeuffer Hello Charyn, My name is Adryana, and I want to you to ask if you would be interested to colaborate and be part of the team Woman's Essence Magazine as writer. Please write an email to womans-essence@live.com for more details.

@ButterflyLady_ Hi Adryana! Thanks for reaching out. Can you tell me what per word rate you pay writers to contribute to Women's Essence?

@charynpfeuffer It is a volunteer opportunity but credits are given in the form of providing your name.

@ButterflyLady_ Why exactly would I want to "volunteer" my writing to your site when I've been paid for my writing for 13+ years?

Oh goody! Exposure! RT @ButterflyLady_: @charynpfeuffer It is a volunteer opportunity but credits are given in the form of providing your name.

@charynpfeuffer oh well.. i made a question to you after seeing in your description that you do volunteer too .. sorry if that offended you

@ButterflyLady_ I volunteer for NGOs & humanitarian causes. Writing for free is not volunteering - it's taking advantage of writers.

@ButterflyLady_ Yeah, I find it offensive when people try to take advantage of hard working writers who make a living off their time/talent.

@ButterflyLady_ Do you get paid to recruit writers or do you "volunteer" too?

@charynpfeuffer ok thank u for your replies.

@charynpfeuffer oh well.. i apologized , thank you as well for your time, take care

if you live in los angeles...

Check out Do Good Bus. Hop on the bus, get wined and dined and they do the rest. Each trip is different and you never know where or how you'll help out until you arrive at the final do good destination. It's a great way to get involved within the Los Angeles community, make new friends and walk away with a warm and fuzzy feeling. I would love, love, love to see something like this in Seattle (hint, hint if Do Good Bus ever wants to head north).

united way of king county day of hope & help – community resource exchange

On April 22 – my 38th birthday! – United Way of King County’s Community Resource Exchange will connect homeless individuals and families with the services they need all in one place, on one day. Participants will have access to free health services, haircuts, voicemail accounts, legal assistance and many other vital services.
Join me for an inspiring day of volunteering where you’ll have the opportunity to work directly with people experiencing homelessness in our community. (I signed up to work on the Social Media Team!)

There are a variety of volunteer roles available including hospitality, participant support, service provider supporter, interpreter services and much, much more. You can choose from two volunteer shifts: 7:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. or 11:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Click here now to sign up to volunteer! For more information, visit www.uwkc.org/cre or cre@uwkc.org

december project preview: food lifeline in shoreline, wa

December brings me home to Seattle to volunteer with Food Lifeline, a nonprofit food distribution agency working to provide nutritious food to hungry, low-income people in Western Washington state. It was my intention to finish up TGCP somewhere close to home to emphasize the importance of volunteering within your community. But the winter and holiday seasons seem to create additional volunteer needs in Seattle (and most urban environs, I would guess), so I decided to move up my local service project in the grandmaster schedule.

That said, I am using this opportunity to encourage people within the Seattle area community to get out and volunteer during the holiday season. Already, I have 19 people signed on to come volunteer with me at Food Lifeline over the month of December, and it’s my goal to at least double that number. Who am I kidding? I’m an overachiever, so what I really mean is that I’d like to quadruple that number. Wait! Let’s make it an even 100 people.

I recently learned that some companies, like Parker Staffing Services, offer their employees paid time off per quarter to volunteer. How cool is that? (Parker Staffing Service has 10 – yes, 10! – employees joining the food distribution festivities.) If you’re a 9-to-5er, ask your boss if your company offers similar perks – you never know.

Here are the details:
I plan on volunteering in Food Lifeline’s Product Recovery Center (PRC), Monday – Friday afternoons. PRC is open Mon-Fri 8:30-4:30 and needs volunteers help sort, inspect, and repack foods that have been donated by local grocery stores. It is a physical job that requires you to stand on a concrete warehouse floor for long periods, and you will need to be able to safely lift 30-40 pounds. PRC volunteers need to be age 16 or older. They ask that volunteers make a minimum 2 hour per visit commitment, most stay for 3-4 hours, and some make a full 6-8 hour day out of their time. PRC’s morning volunteer session runs from 8:30-12:00, and afternoon session run from 12:30-4:30. Volunteers can commit to a one-time volunteer session, or you can volunteer on a few specific dates, or you can commit to help once per week.

If this opportunity doesn’t sound like your thing, that’s okay, because Food Lifeline has lots and lots of other volunteer needs. And…if you don’t feel like volunteering with Food Lifeline, that’s okay too. The bottom line is: all I want for Christmas (let’s pretend for a second that I believed in the baby Jesus) is for you to get out there and do something nice to give back to your community. Easy peasey, right? Big change doesn’t require a hero’s effort. Just a few hours of kindness can provide comfort and make you a hero to someone else -- especially during the holidays.

To register to volunteer at Food Lifeline:
Please send an email to Food Lifeline’s Volunteer Coordinator, Karen Chernotsky, karenc@fll.org and state what date(s) and time you are available to help.

Please and thank you in advance for your consideration. Seriously, gimme two hours of your time and I pinky swear promise we’ll have a blast. That’s the best thing about volunteering – it feels good.

october project preview: quinta das abelhas in tábua, coimbra, portugal

Where: Tábua is located in central Portugal; it’s essentially a rural region of breeding cattle and producing corn, wine, chestnuts, cork and olive oil.

What: Work varies with the seasons but usually includes digging, weeding, planting and watering in the gardens, harvesting and preserving, mucking out the animals, building work, general maintenance and keeping the place tidy, household chores and childcare.

Significance: Quinta das Abelhas is part of World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). WWOOF is a network where in return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles.

This project coincides with harvest, and as an avid foodie, home chef and Slow Food member, I take great interest in learning about food sources and eating locally and seasonally whenever possible.

needed: usb thumb drives

If any of my lovely readers have any spare USB thumb drives lying around, I’d love for you to send them my way.

Here’s what I’m looking for:

Nine 2MG+ thumb drives (for my 9 remaining projects). I’d like to be able to transfer all photos and videos taken during the course of the project to a thumb drive and leave it with the volunteer program host. Everybody likes instant gratification, right? The chances me actually uploading images to a program’s Picasa or Flickr site are pretty slim, and besides, my at-home internet connection doesn’t like it very much when I try to upload large quantities of images.

Many of the programs I’m volunteering with would benefit from any kind of additional virtual storage space, so thumb drives of any size would be appreciated.

If you have extra cyber storage to spare, feel free to drop it in the mail to moi at:

Charyn Pfeuffer
1752 NW Market Street, #432
Seattle, WA 98107

100 thanks in advance.