International Volunteer Day - 5 December 2009

International Volunteer Day (IVD) was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1985. IVD is now celebrated worldwide with thousands of volunteers involved in a range of IVD initiatives including clean-up campaigns, conferences, exhibitions, morning teas and many other activities all aimed to highlight the role of volunteers in their communities.

Volunteering Australia supports IVD and encourages all volunteer based organisations to be involved and celebrate volunteering.

This year IVD falls on a Saturday. That gives you a great opportunity to promote volunteering in local shopping centres with a large weekend audience.

Start planning now – consider what you can do given the weekend opportunity.

Contact your local shopping centre or maybe your local hardware warehouse and ask for space to have a display about your organisation and the role volunteers play. Start planning your display. Contact your local paper and ask them to support you with an article on volunteering the week leading into IVD.

You will find a range of resources on our website that might help including a downloadable certificate of appreciation, volunteering facts to help with your media contact, and tips on how you can celebrate locally.

Some organisations will choose to celebrate the day before (Friday 4th) so choose whichever day suits you. Being a Saturday you might even consider a volunteer party or barbecue as your celebration.

Whatever you choose to do get started on the planning and communications now. Well planned events are usually the most successful and given that IVD falls in December there will be demand for shopping centre display space (Christmas rush is under way) and the early bird usually gets the worm.

Good luck with your celebrations and don’t forget to share your ideas with the volunteer community.