Wichita Eagle
Roy Wenzl
Pg. 1A
Nola Brown hopes to do a number of nice things very soon for you and for all Wichitans and Kansans.
But before she takes the next step in launching Volunteer Kansas this Thursday, she’d like you to show up Thursday and do something nice for your community.
She’s hoping a whole bunch of us will show up at Exploration Place at 5:30 p.m. Thursday to hear her explain Volunteer Kansas, and to help her wash 400 chairs in need of a good washing at the science museum.
In return for getting up to our elbows in suds and a few minutes of warm-water charity work, anyone showing up at that time and that place will get to hear Kansas first lady Stacy Parkinson, the governor’s wife, talk about volunteerism. And Brown will explain the new website.
Brown is its executive director. The website, volunteerkansas.org, is a centralized site to help people in Wichita and eventually all of Kansas. Brown and its other founders hope it will become a community kiosk for volunteerism.
The idea originated from the same place as many other charitable works originated in Wichita — with Barry and Paula Downing, lifelong Wichitans, business people and philanthropists with a penchant for modesty and a dislike of talking about their extensive giving.
“Really, all we want to say is that this project is being funded by a grant from the Barry and Paula Downing Foundation,” Brown said.
A federal report released in June said that almost 36 percent of Kansans volunteer, ranking the state 8th nationally in the percent of residents age 16 and older who do volunteer work with formal organizations.
The overall goal of the project is to take Kansas from being ranked number eight to making it number one, Brown said. A more specific goal is to create one website for volunteerism in Wichita and in Kansas, eliminating the need for those in need, or volunteers, to search websites of many agencies.
The idea has a lot of detail in it, Brown said.
For one thing, to promote it, Volunteer Kansas has paired up with the Greteman Group, which recently, along with The Wichita Eagle, launched a campaign called “Do the Deed,” in which good deeds by people were promoted all over the area.
“Do the Deed is same message as what we want to promote with Volunteer Kansas,” Brown said. “It is a non-monetary way to do something nice for someone. We liked that.”
She said Volunteer Kansas will:
* Be a way for Kansans to find a way to help other Kansans.
* Be the place where anyone with a need for volunteers, or anyone wanting to volunteer, can find an opportunity, first within the Wichita region and eventually within the entire state.
If a person wanting to do something good doesn’t have time, but has money to donate, they can click onto the micro grants portion of website and donate between $5 and $2,000.
Volunteer Kansas is starting small. For now, eight local organizations will be featured on the site: Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities, Youthville, Kansas Humane Society, Exploration Place, Sedgwick County Zoo, Salvation Army and Wichita Festivals. Eventually, Brown said, the site will highlight organizations across the state, as well as more Wichita groups.
Brown and officials at Exploration Place decided to do two things at once with Thursday’s event, announcing details of the project while also encouraging Wichitans who want to volunteer. “They have something like 400 chairs in need of washing at Exploration Place,” she said. “So we thought we could talk about the project and also see if we could get those chairs washed.”
She’s in charge of the detergent and sponges for that event, so she’s hoping — more than a little bit — that she’ll end up with more than a little help.
© The Wichita Eagle, 2010
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