Emily Schnitker is an AmeriCorps member with the Jackson County United Way (Indiana) serving as a Volunteer Coordinator.  As Volunteer Coordinator, she is responsible for developing relationships with community agencies, helping potential volunteers find their niche, recruit new volunteers, and assist with special volunteer events.  In her short time serving at Jackson County United Way, she has established a Volunteer Center for our community.  The first thing she did was to create an account with Volunteer Match to post new volunteer opportunities.  Then she met with local agencies in the county to discuss their volunteer positions and to help them create descriptions and postings.  She led trainings on Volunteer Match so that each agency could easily learn how to use the website.  Once the first stages of setting up an account and filling it with volunteer positions was complete, she met with several community clubs, organizations and the media.

To publicize her work, she developed a radio advertisement utilizing local volunteers and got a local radio station to run it at no charge.  Two local newspapers have also featured the Volunteer Center multiple times in news articles. 

Emily also helped to coordinate the first recognition of National Volunteer Week in Jackson County.  Two new events were planned for the week.  The first event was a Volunteer Fair held at the local library.  12 organizations participated and approximately 50 potential new volunteers came in to learn about local volunteer opportunities.  The second event was Youth Day of Caring.  Despite some cold and rainy weather, approximately 80 youth and adult sponsors volunteered at 9 sites throughout the county.  Five local businesses also donated some items as a thank you for our volunteers! 

Her focus now is preparing for the 15^th annual Day of Caring in our county.  This includes finding new volunteer groups and project sites.  There are also a couple other events coming up to end her term of service.  A goal of hers is to also develop some information sharing and volunteer training for local agencies, organizations and community members. 

Emily’s service has produced a notable increase in phone calls, site views and office visits for people interested in volunteering.  Volunteering is catching the attention of many different people in the community.  Emily has helped lay the groundwork for our Volunteer Center and next year’s AmeriCorps members can continue on her path.  I believe that Emily’s service has helped the community develop a conscience for service and a passion for volunteering