Bee Volunteers
BEE VOLUNTEERS is a program in ongoing development that was initiated by and is progressing through the hands and minds of a small group of scholastic teenagers in Brevard County, FL.
Looking for ways to meet their bright Futures Scholarship volunteer hours, a small group of teens quickly discovered that the process to identify and determine what opportunities existed for their age group was arduous. Trying to locate opportunities in the evening and weekend hours that students have available was even harder. Though the hardest part of all seemed to settle around the need to find and stick with a theme or concept of volunteering starting in the 9th grade that can continue through graduation.
In 2016, this group of students began meeting, thinking, talking, researching, and imagining what they might be able to work together to achieve. They wanted to provide help for the need they found that was relevant to most students who are on a scholastic path in their community. The concept of both meeting their hours and building the tools and resources that others could benefit from came alive. Soon the creative process was underway and BEE VOLUNTEERS was born.
The group has been working under the direction of Local Movement Development Director, Beth McKenzie, since the fall of 2016. Working to develop this program serves the community and will have a residual effect, making their time-spent pay off for the community time and again. With the students acting as the driving force, so far they have identified the outline of what they expect to build, what goals they expect to be able to achieve, and the long list of responsibilities that come with those goals to complete and run the program. They have developed the name, worked in support of the concept of the logo and tagline, and they have identified the tools they will be building for community access.
The responsibilities the group has identified to develop the program include:
- Research, data gathering, and shared data management regarding age appropriate volunteer opportunities
- Research into the types of tools and technologies that can be used or built to create access to the data gathered
- Creative development in both imagery and language to support clear and concise marketing/educational material needed to get others to use the program
- Communication (with each other and with the program director) using email, social media groups, text groups, shared data/file folders, and shared calendars
- Develop and maintain the technology tools and resources that can be best utilized by other students in Brevard and integrating them into a website
- Learning and then utilizing website content management systems to create, edit, and update content to support the program’s user interface on the website
- Further developing their current skills in Word, Excel, and light graphic layout programs to create, manage, and share data effectively
- Communication of the final program products through email, website, social media, flyers
- Taking action to help/train/act as customer service to those who use the tools and resources of the BEE VOLUNTEERS program
- Reviewing their progress each summer, setting new goals, and holding each other accountable for progression
Local Movement is proud to support our local future leaders in their quest to learn/intern in the development of personal and professional skills that will give them valuable experiences early on that will support them using their talents and abilities to serve their communities for a lifetime.
Check back often to see their progress. We will post new updates as it moves along. Names are currently omitted due to the age of these young go-getters.