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My experience volunteering with the Dayton Foodbank

This article is part of the Finding Our Voices program where Elevate Dayton supports Wright State University students as they learn how to create content. Wright State student Erik Madus details his first-person account of how he organized volunteer opportunities at the Dayton Foodbank for his high school marching band.

By Erik Madus, The ONEIL Center

Back when I was in high school around 2014, I organized several volunteer opportunities for the Oakwood High School Marching Band at the Dayton Foodbank. I did this for a couple of reasons. The first was because I was disappointed in the world after seeing massive amounts of wasted food at football game concession stands and parties. A second reason I did this was to demonstrate that I had leadership skills, which I thought would look good on a college application.

I wanted the volunteer opportunity to serve as an official band event and there were a few steps I needed to do to make this happen. I first had to pitch the idea to my band director. This was pretty straightforward and I easily received permission. The next step was to reach out to the volunteer coordinator at the Dayton Foodbank. I found her email on their website, drafted a message and had someone review it before sending it. It took a few days to get a response, but eventually the coordinator and I hashed out a date for the volunteer opportunity.

I asked the volunteer coordinator if the band could come in during Thanksgiving break so it wouldn’t interfere with school and she agreed. Once I had a date, I went back to my band director and asked if I could announce it in class and he agreed as well. I made the in-class announcements a few times, but it wasn’t too effective.

Undeterred by the early setbacks, I saw the upcoming marching band concert as the perfect opportunity to recruit other student volunteers. My band director was especially keen on the idea since he liked seeing students take the initiative.

I then set to work on writing a brief speech. Taking a public speaking class at the time provided some strategies for making the speech effective and an opportunity to receive feedback on it. Practicing my speech was the next course of action to ensure it would be persuasive.

The night of the marching band concert arrived and I was ready. I played in the concert and gave my speech during a brief pause in the performance. It was very well received and people clapped. Over the next few days, several people signed up to volunteer at the Dayton Foodbank.

The first batch of people who signed up to volunteer were mainly people I knew, but there were a couple of new ones. I made some more announcements in class and a few more people signed up.

Now that I had successfully recruited other student volunteers, the only thing left to do was to volunteer at the Dayton Foodbank. Our volunteer time slot was for about two hours. I had a great time and the group packed a large number of meals. We were invited to volunteer again and did the same in the following weeks. Looking back on the experience, I was glad to gain some leadership skills and give back to the community at the same time.


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