Join Hands Day is the first Saturday in May. It is a national
volunteer
Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...
day and annual event sponsored by the
American Fraternal Alliance The American Fraternal Alliance (AFA) is an umbrella group of fraternal orders in the United States. It was founded as the National Fraternal Congress of America in 1913, in Chicago and adopted its current name in 2011.
History
The origins of the ...
.
Background
The day was launched by what was then called America's Fraternal Benefit Societies in 2000, in partnership with
Points of Light Foundation
Points of Light is an international nonprofit, nonpartisan organization headquartered in Georgia, United States dedicated to engaging more people and resources in solving serious social problems through voluntary service.
Each year, Points of ...
. It is meant to have a focus not just on volunteering, but also on developing youth and adult relationships.
For the first two years of Join Hands Day, organizations were asked to register their Join Hands Day projects via the official web site. In some years, a certain number of groups were chosen to receive a cash award for the beneficiary of their project or another cause and a physical award, and were recognized at the National Fraternal Congress of America (NFCA) annual conference. It was not always on the first Saturday in May; the 2001 day was held on June 16.
Organizers of Join Hands Day offer participants ideas for group volunteering events that can bring adults and youth together in community service, such as repairing bicycles to give disadvantaged children and teaching bicycle maintenance, collecting chairs of various shapes and sizes to paint and then auction for a worthy cause, or repairing gravestones and improve landscaping in a cemetery and documenting historic grave sites.
50 Great JOIN HANDS DAY Project Ideas that Work
accessed June 23, 2016
See also
* Association for Volunteer Administration
The Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA) was created in 1961 as a nonprofit association for those that work with volunteers, in any setting. For more than 44 years, it was the largest professional association in the world for managers of ...
* Benefit society
A benefit society, fraternal benefit society, fraternal benefit order, friendly society, or mutual aid society is a society, an organization or a voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit, for instance insurance for relief fr ...
* Civic Engagement
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* Community Service
Community service is unpaid work performed by a person or group of people for the benefit and betterment of their community without any form of compensation. Community service can be distinct from volunteering, since it is not always performed ...
* Global Youth Service Day
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* Good Deeds Day
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Background
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* International Council of Voluntary Agencies
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Organisation
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* International Year of Volunteers
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* List of North American fraternal benefit orders
This is a list of North American fraternal orders. Ethnic- and religious-oriented fraternal orders have their own list.
A
* American Benefit Society of New York – Headquartered in White Plains, New York. Had 939 members at the end of 192 ...
* Make A Difference Day
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(USA and Canada)
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(9/11 Day)
* Sewa Day
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* Single Marine Program Days of Service
Single may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Single (music), a song release
Songs
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* Subbotnik
* World Kindness Day
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References
External links
* {{official website, 1=https://netforum.avectra.com/eWeb/DynamicPage.aspx?Site=AFALLIANCE&WebCode=JoinHandsDay
Unofficial observances
May observances
Volunteering