For the Love of Volunteers

I love Volunteer Appreciation. It is so enjoyable to make others feel appreciated. I have a whole Pinterest board of DIY ideas for appreciating your workers, but today, I want to blog about my Valentine one. 

This Valentine Appreciation Tree emerged from the Volunteer Christmas Tree I wrote about in an earlier blog.

For Valentine’s Day, I bought Little Debbie’s for all the workers. Who doesn’t love Little Debbie’s? I put each individually wrapped package in cellophane Valentine bags from the Dollar Tree and hung them on the lighted Christmas tree. My coworker made red hearts with her Cricut to turn it into
a Valentine Appreciation Tree.  

We had the children make cards in Sunday School during our craft time. I had a list of our kidmin volunteers, and each child chose a worker to make a card for. We had several children want to do the same volunteer. If we had made up one name label per volunteer, and handed these out, this problem would have been circumvented. We ended up assigning children a second name so that every worker was covered. Some workers got multiple Valentines (but not multiple Little Debbie's!)

When their card was done, the kids picked a present off the Valentine Appreciation Tree to give to their volunteer. 

I really liked this Valentine project because it taught the children to give and it had the following benefits:

• They MADE a card for someone else
• They picked a present for someone else
• They thanked a worker and gave them something that it took time to make
• It helped our children to learn who some of our lesser-known volunteers were.

Leftover Little Debbie's on Our Valentine Appreciation Tree

The kids and the workers alike enjoyed this activity. 

After they handed out their Valentine's, the children were allowed to pick from the snacks that were still left on the tree.

Checkout my Encouragement & Volunteer Appreciation board for more great ideas to show the love.