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Hands Up! Volunteer Expo hailed as
a great success for finding new volunteers
Moncton, New Brunswick - October 28, 2008 More than 5,600 people attended the inaugural Hands Up! Volunteer Expo and Conference in Moncton, which wrapped up Sunday, with many non-profit groups hailing the two-day event a huge success in terms of generating potential volunteers. "One non-profit group compared it to jet propulsion when it came to recruiting more volunteers," said show producer Tony Hebert of ShareKnowledge Inc. "Many non-profits take months and years to recruit as many volunteers as they acquired in a couple of days at Hands Up! Several reported almost doubling their volunteer numbers while others were just pleased to acquire a few new volunteers. Everyone seemed pleased to educate visitors about their services and to network with other non-profit organizations." A booth-by-booth survey completed at the close of the expo, which featured 102 non-profit organizations from across Southeastern New Brunswick, revealed 926 volunteer sign-ups and leads. "If all of these new volunteers assist in our community for just a couple of hours a week, more than $1.9 million in volunteer value would be generated in just two days for our non-profits in Greater Moncton," said Hebert. "Based on the non-profits exhibiting, that translates into the equivalent of about $19,000 in new human capital for each non-profit. Not withstanding the new enthusiasm these fresh volunteers will inject into the non-profit groups, this new human capital will increase the potential for new services to be delivered and existing services to be maintained." The United Way of Greater Moncton and Southeastern New Brunswick Region Inc. and the Volunteer Centre of Southeastern New Brunswick Inc. joined ShareKnowledge Inc. in organizing the Hands Up! Volunteer Expo and Conference, the first event of its kind in Canada. In addition to the work of the organizing partners, Hebert attributed the success of Hands Up! to the hundreds of volunteers and many sponsors involved. He gave a special thanks to 16 Canada World Youth exchange students from Canada and Ghana for their hard work in helping with the event. Organizers were particularly pleased with the level of youth engagement at the expo, said Hebert. Officials from School District 2 permitted many of their high school students to attend Friday. While the expo led to many potential volunteers for non-profits, there were several other positive outcomes, said Hebert. One sponsor who visited the event made a commitment to an organization to become a major investor of their program while a website developer offered his time to build new sites for some non-profits, he said. "Besides being a forum for potential volunteers to explore new opportunities for the first time, the non-profit organizations gathered also had a chance to meet and discuss on an informal level how they could work together," said Hebert. "This is another example of the many successes of the event." The non-profit trivia "Bingo' game for visitors was also a big hit, said Hebert. Over 1,100 expo visitors played the game and discovered 24 interesting facts about local non-profit groups. The winner of the VIA Rail trip to Montreal, tickets to an NHL game and two nights at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel was Maria Mutch. The winner of the VIA tickets for two to Halifax for completing a Hands Up! evaluation survey was Jamie Thomson. Sobeys, Lounsbury's and Cavendish Farms sponsored a barbecue during Hands Up! with more than 2,100 free lunches prepared and served by members of area Lions Clubs. What's Next for Hands Up!? A meeting of Hands Up! organizers will be held in early November to review the inaugural event and the evaluations from visitors and exhibitors. "I've already received inquires from other cities to approach their community with a Hands Up! initiative," said Hebert. "Locally, our priority is to build an up-to-date directory of community non-profits for future years, with a brief description of volunteer needs, contact info, an e-video of their organization and information about their history and impact in our community." Hands Up! will also launch a free e-newsletter and subscriber management system to area non-profits to make it easy for them to communicate with their donors and volunteers. "We have many new leadership initiatives planned to assist community non-profits in attracting more volunteers and funding," said Hebert.
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