NATIONAL SERVICE DAY 2009
UlsterCorps was organized just in time to respond to the call to service on Martin Luther King
Jr. Day, January 2009. Despite the short time to prepare for the event a core group of five
UlsterCorps volunteers was able to quickly invite agencies to host service events and open
houses to encourage volunteer involvement throughout the county. UlsterCorps matched 102
new volunteers to a service agency around “National Service Day†throughout the county at
places like the Queens Galley Soup Kitchen, Big Brothers/Big Sisters Ulster County, The Red
Cross Blood Drive, Sustainable Hudson Valley, and The Ulster Literacy Association, and the
USPCA.
“PROJECT COATSâ€
“Project Coats,†grew from an UlsterCorps Facebook posting where an individual wrote that
she knew of 800 brand new youth winter coats in NJ that could be available for donation, but
didn’t know how to pick them up or where to donate them. UlsterCorps was able to coordinate
this donation, finding 10 volunteers with strong arms and/or large vehicles to drive to NJ to
pick up the coats and distribute them to agencies throughout the county that indicated an
interest in receiving them: Family of Woodstock, Rural & Migrant Ministry, Harbor Program
of MHA in Ulster, River Haven, and the Saugerties & Kingston Boys & Girls Clubs. This effort
took hours of administrative coordination work. UlsterCorps was pleased to take on this task,
saving the agencies from having to utilize their own resources to coordinate this donation.
Furthermore, the quantity of 800 coats would likely have been too large for one service
agency to handle, so by working together through UlsterCorps, many agencies and youth were
beneficiaries during the cold, long winter season.
HARVESTING A LIFETIME Summer Youth Workshop
During July and August of 2009, UlsterCorps provided employment placement for five youth
through the Summer Youth Employment Program at the Seven21 Media Center to work with
existing Harvesting a Lifetime footage. Volunteer videographers and teachers trained the
youth in media, editing, interviewing and job-readiness skills. UlsterCorps collaborated with
Ulster County Office of Employment & Training Summer Youth Employment Program, Family
of Woodstock’s JustConnect Teen Outreach Program, Second Chance4Me, and Seven21
Media Center which supplied the facilities for this project. Staffing was all volunteer, the use
of equipment donated, and individual donations received to cover the costs of materials.
