It’s only been two months since First Lady Michelle Obama announced her service challenge to the GW community—in exchange for 100,000 hours of service, she will speak at GW’s 2010 Commencement — and with more than 19,000 hours completed, the University is almost a fifth of the way there.
Now volunteers will be able to easily track and report their service hours as well as search for service opportunities with the launch of the new online tool VolunteerMatch. To report hours, visit the site at serve.gwu.edu, click on "Report Hours" and follow the steps.
“I’m proud that the GW community has already completed of 19,000 hours of service, but know that many more hours have been completed but not tracked,” says GW President Steven Knapp. “Tracking and reporting hours will be much easier now that GW's VolunteerMatch system is up and running.”
The University will host a series of events to help the GW community learn how to use its VolunteerMatch system.
A launch celebration was held on Nov. 16 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Marvin Center’s Great Hall, with trained staff and laptops available for VolunteerMatch registration and hour reporting. The University also hosted a series of 30-minute informational webinars to train service challenge participants on how to use VolunteerMatch. Those who completed their registration and report their hours before Nov. 20 were automatically entered into a drawing to win several prizes, including an Amazon Kindle.
“We’re excited to offer VolunteerMatch to the GW community not only in helping us reach our goal of having Mrs. Obama as our Commencement speaker but also in making service an integral part of the GW experience,” says GW Senior Vice President for Student and Academic Support Services Robert Chernak.
“Having VolunteerMatch will help us accurately track hours for the service challenge and make finding new opportunities that students are passionate about really simple,” says President of the GW Student Association Julie Bindelglass. “I encourage all students to logon to VolunteerMatch and report your hours today.”
The launch of VolunteerMatch coincides with the University’s Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. Held every year the week before Thanksgiving, more than 500 campuses and communities organize and participate in several unique, educational events, including community service events, hunger banquets and food drives.