Around Christmas time we took part in a project called “Festive Favours” – an idea formed by V in order to promote volunteering to young people throughout December. Festive Favours involved ‘Time Tokens’ – gifts in the form of fake cheques that worked rather like IOU tokens. Young people could give these tokens to friends or family in lieu of a Christmas present. Instead, the tokens represented a physical promise of the young person’s time. The aim of the project was to bring the idea of volunteering to the forefront of the minds of 16-25 years olds; they would offer to pledge their own time to friends and family in the place of a physical gift, much like volunteers need to pledge their time, rather than their money.
“By promising to give your time instead of buying a present, why not volunteer to help someone with their shopping, mow the lawn, walk the dog or even cook a loved one breakfast in bed. We’ll give you a personalised Time Token which can be gift wrapped, and ready to pop under the tree for friends or family.” http://www.vliverpool.org.uk/node/143
For Festive Favours, the YAT North East set up a stall right next to Romford Market on the afternoon of Saturday 19th December. We had purple decorations, badges and tattoos to hand out and of course, the V sign-up sheets.
After setting up we gave out ‘Time Tokens’ to passersby around our local shopping centre. Teenage boys in particular liked the idea of a free Christmas present, and we got the opportunity to speak to them all briefly about volunteering. We encouraged them to go and visit the stall and gave them stickers for their time!
It was an exciting event that was a success in that people were really enthusiastic about it and it really did spread the word of volunteering.
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