Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day Step 3: I'm Going To Walt Disney World

I got my voucher notice the other day...and here it is. I am planning a trip in June. We decided that we will volunteer again with the kids if I can find something appropriate.

The idea is to take this voucher with ID to the Park and get a one day ticket. I will look into exchanging it for a 10 day ticket once I get down there. All in all this was a very positive opportunity. I had a great time helping out with the seniors. I am sure that they liked getting their questions and needs look at and resolved. I will be helping out with a program at our school that will bring seniors into the school's lab and then train them on how to use the computers and the Internet. I have been following other peoples stories about Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day and for the most part it has been positive.

If you have not looked into doing this yet, you should. It is not that much time, and the reward is what any Disney fan can ask for, another chance to go to the parks. I'll re-visit this thread of posts once I get to the parks and turn in the voucher.

Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day Step 2 Completed

This past Monday night I had completed Step 2 in Disney's Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day promotion. In the last post I went over finding the volunteering opportunity. In this one I discuss the actual experience. I was signed up with three other people to visit a Senior Center in Philadelphia to help answer and troubleshoot computer questions. Not the first thing that comes to mind when you see Kermit and Miss Piggy building that house in the commercials. My coverage time was 6-8. I got there around 5:30 and after signing in I found the library/computer center. As I was waiting for the event coordinator to arrive I took some time to take a look at the four pc's they had on site. I had time to check that all were pretty much up to date with software and anti-virus. Before the session started the coordinator asked us to fill out a short form that would be submitted to the HandsOn people to be relayed to Disney. The first person I helped was a nice woman named Alice. We went over things such as email, using mapquest, getting a value on her 1985 toyota and some other things. There were a couple more people I helped in the pretty much the same way. The time went pretty fast and I'm pretty sure I was helpful. When we finished up we were thanked and it broke up. I left my email for the people I had helped in case there are any future questions I can help with. The next day I got an email from HandsOn people and they wanted to thank me and let me know that they would soon contact Disney and I should get an email from Disney in up to two weeks telling me how to claim the park ticket. Stay tuned for Step 3

Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day Muppet Media

Disney has some great gadgets set up to advertise their Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day campaign using the Muppets in full force. Just ask Fozzie and Kermit below.

Disney's Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day Campaign: I'm In

Hello and Happy belated New Year from the Maz Disney Blog. I wanted to start the year off right and begin working on all of the New Years resolutions that I made. As it happens, Disney is right there to lend a helping hand with my resolution # 4, helping out the community more. (I had 7 resolutions in all in case you were wondering) The Disney Give-A-Day Get-A-Day campaign had begun as of Jan 1 but has been talked about since September. By volunteering a day of your time, Disney would give you a free day at the park. Wow, one free day at the park. That’s great. (I read back over the last two lines a couple of times and could not say them without them sounding sarcastic, but I’m not. Really) You do deal with some of the issues that the free park ticket for your birthday showed us. Like you don’t go for just one day so odds are that free ticket would be one day of 5 and would only be worth $10 or $15 by that point. You actually need to get to a park and for those that need to fly down, that’ll cost you. And I guess you would need to sleep so hotel is a couple more bucks. These are the facts and not negatives.
With Disney’s new campaign they are doing something that I kept thinking Bill Gates or the Virgin Airlines guy or one of those filthy rich guys was going to do or even our new president; start some kind of volunteering movement to get more people active in helping out those less fortunate. I don’t volunteer all the time, but with two pre-teens in two different schools and the church and community groups I do my share. The problem is I see the same dozen or so parents volunteering at each event. I’m hoping that by Disney doing this that they are going to get some of those other people to jump in and try helping others for the free ticket. Maybe they’ll find out giving a couple hours each week is not that hard and it is very rewarding.
I Googled the campaign over New Years weekend and found none of the early slow problems that I had read about and started at the Disney Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day web site. The Overview says, “We want to inspire one million people to volunteer a day of service to a participating organization in their communities. So we're celebrating these volunteers' good works by giving each of them a 1-day, 1-theme park ticket to the Disneyland® Resort or Walt Disney World® Resort, free. There's no better time to make a dream come true for others and let us make a few come true for you.”
Step 1 is the Search and Sign-up part of the process. The Find an Activity button takes you to a search page where you can enter your zip code and/or a specific type of volunteering opportunity. Disney’s partner on the volunteering side is the Hands on Network. I hit the search button and a number of pages of opportunities to volunteer came up. Each of the listings look like this (and yes, West Conshohocken is a real town and it is pronounced just like it is spelled)

Opportunity: Collect New Socks and Underwear
Organization Served: Cradles to Crayons
Verifying Organization: Cradles to Crayons
Interest: Children & Youth, Community, Hunger & Homelessness
Location: West Conshohocken, PA 19428
Distance: 4.7 miles
Minimum age: 16
Date Time Notes
February 26 9:30 am to 4:30 pm (26 volunteers still needed as of 50 minutes ago)
Show details

When you select the Show Details link you get, of course, more details and a button to register if you would like to volunteer for that job. The registration page is run by Disney and looks to be as secure as the rest of their site. The information they ask is expected. There is a place to enter the names of any family members that will be helping you. There is also a place where they ask you about when and where you plan on using the free ticket.
So, as of now, I have done all of Step 1. The opportunity I volunteered for is a place in Philly that needs help educating their seniors to use the internet to keep in touch with their family. I have heard back from the group that I am helping and am all set. The date is Jan 25.

Step 2 is actually doing what you said you would and Step 3 is redeeming the ticket. I’ll make this a series of posts and will continue to update how the process goes.