Volunteering at NPR

Last February, I volunteered at NPR during their member drive. At work, we can take 8 hours off to do community service, so I did that. I had a great time--they really take the goals and run with them although the phones weren't ringing that much, since I volunteered on a Tuesday that week. They had quite a spread for the volunteers, which was nice as well.

I recently heard they'd be doing the member drive again and decided to sign up for two nights. My sister wanted to go along on Sunday and convinced Lucas to take a crack at it as well, so we all trouped down there on Sunday evening to volunteer during the Big Broadcast, NPR's old time radio show here in DC.

So, we're down there, and I must say, the food was not all that spectacular. But the phones started ringing like crazy the minute we went live. Our first goal was $5000, and we had that within about 20 minutes, so they upped the goal to $10,000 and wham! We had that by the end of the hour.

This campaign, they also kicked off an award for the volunteer with the best handwriting, and I won! :) I got a crown to wear for an hour, and a certificate signed by the volunteer coordinator and the host of one of the local shows, so that was pretty cool. Oh, and a CD of an old radio show from WWII. But I'm waiting till my sister's around to listen to it.

The night went by very quickly, and I was really excited to be there while we got almost $30,000 in pledges. I talked to a lot of really interesting people and it was a lot of fun.

I'm going back this Thursday, having picked Thursday thinking that there might be more calls towards the end of the week. Judy is disappointed they are full up on volunteers, so I suspect during the winter/spring campaign, she'll sign up for 2 days like I did. I'm glad she went with me. It was a fun way to spend time together doing something different.

Support your local NPR station! :-)