National Volunteer Week – a time to celebrate volunteers and volunteering

If you’re one of Victoria’s 1.5 million volunteers, we thank you!  If not consider giving volunteering a go during National Volunteering Week (14 – 20 May).

National Volunteer Week is the largest celebration of volunteers and volunteering in Australia. Recognising that every single volunteer makes an important contribution to the broader community, this year’s theme is ‘Volunteers – Every One Counts’.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional and Rural Development Peter Ryan launched Victoria’s celebrations on 14 May, during a visit to the Royal Children’s Hospital and the Red Cross Australia headquarters.

Victoria’s Volunteering Portal has more than 3,000 diverse volunteering opportunities to offer – from fire fighting, floods recovery and lifesaving, to pre-school care, adult education, sport and recreation, health, arts, heritage, tourism and local government.

The Volunteering Portal provides a range of functions for both community organisations and Victorians who want to volunteer:

• Potential volunteers can search for opportunities based on location, interests, skills and availability, thanks to the portal’s powerful search engine
• Volunteer organisations, large and small, can load and manage volunteer opportunities at the portal;  they can also take advantage of the portal’s toolkit that provides best practice information, tools and resources for volunteer manager, coordinators and administrators
• Local councils can use the portal’s Emergency Volunteer Register to manage spontaneous volunteers in the aftermath of a natural disaster.
  

Victoria’s ‘I can do that’ volunteering message aims to raise awareness of volunteering, and to encourage volunteering across all sectors of the community.  The 'I can do that' message broadens the common perception of what volunteering is or can be, inspiring individuals to share their skills and passion, and get involved in their local community.

Check out the stories of Victorian volunteers at www.volunteer.vic.gov.au, and you too may find yourself saying “I can do that!”