The Riverview Woman’s Club (RWC) hosted its first Volunteer Opportunity Fair on March 7 at Riverview High School. This event was made possible due to the hard work and dedication of Ann Griffin, Riverview High School guidance counselor, and Melissa Canfield, board member of Riverview Woman’s Club.
Canfield stated, “The RWC wants to help students connect with local members of our community who are in need of student volunteers. So many times, students have the desire to help, but they just don’t know where to go and who to contact. Volunteer Opportunity Fairs like this one can solve that issue. Also, our goal is to incorporate more nonprofits in the future to give the students a wide variety of options of where they can volunteer.”
In order to provide the most interaction with the students, it was determined that setting up in the cafeteria would be best, as students would have time to eat and still learn about the nonprofits represented. Eight nonprofit organizations were able to attend, which included the Impact Program, Mary & Martha House, Buddy Cruises, Experience Autism Alliance, High 5 Inc., Rotary of FishHawk-Riverview, You Matter to Me – Lithia, FL and Angel Foundation FL. Each student had an opportunity to learn about each organization and how they could help their local community, as well as earn Bright Futures volunteer hours.
Students were given ‘passports’ to complete for each nonprofit to sign after they visited a booth to learn more about an organization. As an incentive, Chick-fil-A of Riverview donated over 250 free Chick-fil-A sandwich cards for those students who completed a visit to each nonprofit in attendance.
Griffin was pleased with the students’ response to the fair, and plans are in the works with the Riverview Woman’s Club to bring in additional nonprofits in the fall.
“This was a great first step in bringing students and nonprofits directly together to learn how they can help each other. This would be wonderful for our seniors to attend in the fall term as well so they had plenty of time to complete their Bright Future Hours prior to graduation. We look forward to working with the Riverview Woman’s Club again,” said Griffin.
Riverview High School is located at 11311 Boyette Rd. in Riverview. Visit www.hillsboroughschools.org/riverviewhs for more information on the school. For more information about the Riverview Woman’s Club, visit www.riverviewwomansclub.org.
