This is an appeal to those far more experienced in the realm of community service.
I'm Assistant Legislative Coordinator of my union chapter, a chapter of federal workers 6,000 strong in a large city. I'm also the chapter webmaster (despite never having designed web pages before), the press secretary, the petition coordinator, and all-around errand boy.
I don't mind the many positions, because I'm a big believer in Doing the Job, and Doing it Right.
I just submitted a somewhat informal proposal to my union president, stating that it is unconscionable for a chapter of our size not to have a set program of community service.
(A tip of the hat to El Cabrero for helping push along my nascent idea with his excellent diary on Walter Reuther.)
I proposed that, since the idea of maybe putting ads on the chapter's website as a way of defraying costs had been mentioned to me, that we instead institute a "Community" page on the site, linking to businesses in the community who had paid us a nominal fee (as long as someone else solicits them; I'm not avid to take up that task)--but that, much more importantly, such a page link to causes and charities in the community as well as causes more far-ranging. One of the great regrets I have is that I didn't push that something about the Darfur situation be put in the chapter newsletter or on the website.
Lastly, the Community page would highlight whatever the union would be doing in the realm of community service.
I posed several ideas of things we could do very inexpensively: Cleaning up a vacant lot somewhere, volunteering at a soup kitchen, visiting old age homes and veteran's homes, having letter-writing campaigns to the troops, going as a chapter to the AIDS Walk or the Race for a Cure walks, and drives for food or sundries to be disbursed to people who needed them.
The main thrust was that, at the end of the day, we would be doing good things, but also, that said good things would do good things for us as well: The community service would result in press coverge and press contacts, it would further entice politicians to see us as a community leader and to show us more attention, it would heighten the image of the union both in the community and within our workforce, and would allow us to negotiate from a greater position of power with the management.
To start, we'll probably have to announce stuff straight out and solicit for volunteers, but once we get started in earnest, we'll poll our members for ideas and opinions on what kind of service we should be doing.
This was greeted with a great deal of enthusiam by the chapter prez (as well as by the members I solicited for opinions). There exist a few problems, however:
The first and most important, of course, is the problem of making it policy. Our chapter president's term ends in three months. The person on whose slate I am running for office is very receptive the idea--but there's a big difference between enthusiasm and execution. So I have to write up a kickass proposal, and to get support from our union's national office.
The next problem is that of the actual execution. I really don't know where to start. Do I talk to the Mayor's Office, do I solicit community agencies cold--how do we go about actually DOING this?
Any and all assistance and advice will be gladly received and greatly appreciated.