What Happened?
Volunteers in Mesa, Arizona, contributed $5 million worth of unpaid work last year, helping the city achieve many goals while lowering costs. The volunteers put in more than 233,000 hours in the 2013-2014 fiscal year in response to significant cuts to city staff and budgets.
The Goal
AZ Central reported Mesa’s volunteers offered helping hands to a variety of projects typically undertaken by municipal employees. The tasks included:
- Cleaning
- Painting
- Running committees
- Plan and execute city events
Mesa’s parks, recreation and commercial facilities department benefited from more than 42,000 service hours contributed by volunteers, the Mesa Arts Center counted 38,000 hours and Diversity and Neighborhood Outreach enjoyed 33,000 volunteer hours.
Planting the Seed
Mesa has not only enjoyed a strong showing of volunteer support in 2013, but reported consistent community engagement in public projects since 2009. The city attributes its success recruiting volunteers with its Love Your Block initiative that initially drew more than 800 unpaid helpers. The project received $25,000 from the national Cities of Service coalition, and jumpstarted 40 projects throughout 27 neighborhoods in Mesa, AZ Central reported. Overall, the 800 volunteers have:
- Painted 31,000 square feet of housing and community space
- Removed 43 tons of waste
- Cleaned 9,000 square feet of graffiti
The success of the program is thought to have sparked continued interest and participation in Mesa volunteer projects ever since.
Engaging Citizens
Many cities have used the best practices and guidelines provided by Cities of Service to develop service-based initiatives that achieve goals amid budget and staff cuts. In Pierre, South Dakota, for example, city officials had to call upon volunteers to help replant trees and other vegetation that was destroyed by massive floods in 2011.
Pierre not only reached out to volunteers in the community to help with the manual labor, but also offered training programs to ensure all participants could identify flood-resistant strains of trees and plants that would be suit targeted areas. The goal was to replenish lost green space while proactively ensuring the plants would not fall victim to the effects of flooding in the future. Pierre’s volunteer program resulted in:
- More than 100 volunteer participants
- Removal of more than 700 dead trees, stumps and other debris
- Replanting of 800 trees
- Improving the drainage systems in the city
The program gathered volunteers from Pierre, neighboring communities and local colleges.
Similarly, in Philadelphia, the Waste Watchers initiative draws upon volunteer support to increase sustainability throughout the city. More than 1,000 volunteers have already been recruited and trained for the program, and are able to help residents attending a public event properly separate their trash into appropriate receptacles: waste, recycling, compost.
The program first launched with the Philadelphia Marathon this past year, but has since been incorporated with all city events. As a result, 87 percent of event waste has been diverted from the local landfill and appropriately recycled.
A Helping Hand
Gov1 has reported on several municipal projects made possible by volunteers, including parks maintenance and fire department services.