Community Event, Volunteering

Rotary, 20 nonprofits create communitywide service days for 300 volunteers Oct. 21-22

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Sign-ups by volunteers now being accepted

We all can’t go South to help with recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Ian.

But you can help your neighbors in need right here in Greater Cincinnati on Oct. 21-22 in the first of what’s expected to become an annual communitywide weekend of service sponsored by the Rotary Club of Cincinnati.

Nearly two dozen Cincinnati area nonprofits or schools have come together with the Rotary Club, one of the world’s largest service organizations, to create the two days of local service.

Owen Wrassman, Susan Wilkinson

“This is a way to introduce people to the great work that is being done by so many nonprofits in our community, and to give everyone an opportunity to get involved,” said Susan Wilkinson, retired associate director of the Hoxworth Blood Center who is co-chair of the event with Owen Wrassman, chair of the board of the Reds Community Fund.

“We’re starting with 20 volunteer sites this year, but we want this to grow into an annual Do Days of service drawing thousands of volunteers for nonprofits across the region,” said Wrassman.

Prospective volunteers can sign up for a full day of volunteering on one or both days or can sign up for a four-hour shift on one of the two days. Close to 300 volunteer slots range from doing health checks and installing smoke detectors to painting classrooms, doing outdoor clean-up, serving meals and welcoming guests at a Girl Scout conference.

Each site will have a Rotary member present to greet volunteers and facilitate the project.

More than half of the volunteer slots already are filled with Rotary members and teams from corporate partners at Truepoint Wealth Counsel, U.S. Bank and UBS. Other companies are welcome to join in.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval will declare Oct 21 and 22 “Cincinnati Rotary Do Days” with a proclamation presented at 3:45 p.m. Oct. 21 at the St. Francis Seraph Ministries in Over the Rhine, one of the Do Days sites where volunteers will be serving meals to people who are homeless or otherwise in need.

The Cincinnati Rotary Do Days project addresses a critical need of all nonprofits, said Mary Pat Raupach, executive director of St. Francis Seraph Ministries.

“Without volunteers, we could not do what we do,” she said. “We so rely on the talents, the skills and the life experience these volunteers bring – their energy and, most of all, their hearts.”

The Rotary Club of Cincinnati’s nearly 300 members participate in more than 30 local hands-on service activities each year at a variety of local nonprofits and schools in addition to organizing annual international service projects.

But the Do Days event is designed to engage non-Rotarians in service to the community, which is the hallmark of the club’s work. The Rotary club still meets weekly every Thursday for lunch to hear prominent business and community leaders speak about topics important to the community. But Rotary membership fees have been redesigned and attendance at the weekly meeting is no longer required of its members as other social events and times (monthly after-work networking, monthly breakfast meetings, a Bowling league, a Euchre club) are available in addition to the club’s service mission.

Here are the organization’s involved and more information about how volunteers are needed and links to sign up:

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