Anyone sign up for Give A Day Get A Disney Day yet?

[Chrissy&Tayen]

i was really dispointed in the places in my area.. all are very far away and are places that i arent really in my mind needy of me spending my day with them.. one i thought was good kids helping doing work in the town near by.. but its like a camp and the kids pay like 350 to go there.. and im like huh??? for 350 i can pay for a day at disney...lol i am volunteering my time.. not for a disney ticket.. i found a place who helps people get job ready.. as far as clothing, training for a interview and such.. in a time when spirts have been broken do to lay offs and such.. i think its a great idea to boost someone and let them knw they can do.. they can venture into a job or interview with confidence

[tiggerwannabe]

Its kinda sad that you are not the first person I have seen to say the offerings were horrible or even waaaaay too far to get to. The last person I spoke to is in Chicago and that was her issue. The one offering near her was full and she literally said the rest were 9,#### miles away.

The Philly are actually has an overabundance of offerings. Food kitchens, Red Cross, Multiple Sclerosis; Bethlehem PA is even offering spots at their Music Festival.

Its fabulous that you chose to help folks get back to work. I just came thru a 2 year long layoff and really understand how much a little motivation can help.

[DivaOstrich]

I would like to sign up, but as of now the closest opportunity is about a four hour drive. I am going to wait and hope that something opens up a little closer to home. To be honest I was shocked there were opportunities at all in Alaska! I thought for sure my search would come up with '0', but low and behold there were six!

[eowensby]

We are doing ours on MLK day at a food bank that allows our DD(7).

[NICKY MOUSE]

Here in cleveland lost of options. Wife and I signed up to help at the cleveland food bank for an evening sorting food. When i signed up on 1/1/2010 there was somthing like 15 pages worth of choices. We will see how it goes.

[zippitydoodah]

So, I signed up for the humane society, and got an email from Disney and everything was great... and then the humane society never contacted me. So after 5 days I emailed them, and I just got a response saying that they took themselves off of the give a day program because they don't want anyone for just one day and don't like the idea of the program.
So... great. I've been having a really hard time finding opportunities in my area, and then having people actually respond to me. I give up, I'll just pay the $76 and buy my ticket

[zippitydoodah]

Yeesh this is frustrating! I signed up for yet another opportunity... this time with the Canadian Blood services giving out cookies and watching to make sure blood donaters don't faint. For once I got two prompt emails (within an hour), but they only want daily, long-term, during the week volunteers. I'm a student and have classes from 830-4 every monday-friday and my boyfriend works, so there's yet another strike. I thought this was supposed to be give a DAY. I have no problem volunteering a bit more, but I'm a student and don't have a lot of free time and there should be at least SOME one-day opportunites.
I think after the fourth try I'm giving up... is anyone else having such difficulties?

[tiggerwannabe]

So far I am right on schedule for my Red Cross volunteer day, orientation isn't until Jan 20th then they say they will have a new schedule they can throw me into~

It kinda stinks that you are having such a hard time getting your one day in

I am taking hubby with me to earn 2 tickets but as of right now it still looks like our tix are going to wind up getting donated. My BFF is headed down in Sept - I recently started working for a school district and September is off limits~

[Be11e]

I tried searching for organizations and requested information through the site. I did this for about five companies. I only received one response saying that that particular event was booked up. I e-mailed one company directly and have yet to received a response. I don't know if this campaign is as organized in some places than others. I also work for a non-profit organization and we have signed up to accept volunteers. We had a difficulty getting it to work at first. I tried searching for it on the search, and it doesn't even come up yet (we just posted it today however.) I know other members of my family are also having a difficult time getting responses back. I'll probably just do it through my organization because it seems easier if it can work. Everything else just seems more complicated then it needs to be because we're not getting responses from anyone. I too have just thought, oh the heck with it, I'll just pay the ticket price. It's only the first month, so we'll see how it goes.

[zippitydoodah]

I tried searching for organizations and requested information through the site. I did this for about five companies. I only received one response saying that that particular event was booked up. I e-mailed one company directly and have yet to received a response. I don't know if this campaign is as organized in some places than others. I also work for a non-profit organization and we have signed up to accept volunteers. We had a difficulty getting it to work at first. I tried searching for it on the search, and it doesn't even come up yet (we just posted it today however.) I know other members of my family are also having a difficult time getting responses back. I'll probably just do it through my organization because it seems easier if it can work. Everything else just seems more complicated then it needs to be because we're not getting responses from anyone. I too have just thought, oh the heck with it, I'll just pay the ticket price. It's only the first month, so we'll see how it goes.

I had the same situation. I applied to 5, only one contacted me, and it was to say that they only wanted me if I could do full time, long term, weekdays (I guess in case I had no sort of job :P). I tried to contact the other four, two of whom responded to tell me that they took themselves out of the program because they don't agree with having people only volunteer for one day (never got a response from the other two). As it was, one of the places was 45 minutes away and another was over two hours (and in another country! haha... I was willing to cross the border from Canada to the US). Anytime anyone has asked me about the program and what I think of it (since they know I'm big into Disney) I have really nothing good to say about it. Besides the fact that in THEORY it sounds like a good program... if only people were actually willing to have someone come volunteer for just ONE day. I'll keep an eye out but I'm going on my trip in 7 weeks and so I'm probably just going to buy the ticket.

[Mary jo]

The opportunities that are available for me at this time are pretty far away. I was a little surprised since I live right outside of a fairly large city and there were none there. I don't really want to drive for a couple of hours, work the whole day and then have to drive back. I guess I will have to keep checking.

[Be11e]

I also wanted to add that the events listed are only for a certain time period. As it gets closer to the dates, more events will show up that have been previously submitted but not posted. Companies are still signing up, so my advice is if you know of a agency that is closer to you, contact them and ask them to be a part of the "Give a Day. Get a Disney Day" program. It couldn't hurt.

[tiggerwannabe]

Went to a red cross homeless shelter today. Filled out paperwork and probably gonna be spending my day helping there just waiting for my schedule~

[shelbell77]

I signed up sometime around the 6th of 7th of January for the local Project Linus Chapter - and when I say local...they were about an hour away...but you did the work on your own and could drop off or mail your blankets.

I got emailed almost immediately from my organizations coordinator. That said...the initial email was a touch rude. My phone number used when I signed up was my cell phone, which has a San Francisco area code (I live in Central IL now). She sent me a rather rude note about how it was totally inappropriate for me to sign up with them when I lived so far away. I wrote her back and told her I was an hour away, and she was my closest opportunity. She apologized and sent me the details.

I made my blankets. Mailed them off (didn't have time in my schedule to drive down) and within 2 days I got the email that I could print out my voucher.

I will say, opportunities keep getting added all the time. So for people who don't see anything local, keep checking back. Also, the response has been a lot bigger than a lot of the organizations that signed up realized. I know just my local project linus chapter had 400 requests in the first 2 days of the year. And I live in a rural area. Up near my mom, the lady she delivered her blankets too - her house was completely totally stuffed. Her chapter had removed itself from any additional opportunities right now, until they figured out what to do with all the donations they'd already gotten.

Mom didn't understand that - but I can see how the response would be completely overwhelming for the coordinator from the volunteer organization to be so completely overrun with so many requests in a short period of time. I really think as the year progresses things will calm down some and you'll see more and more opportunities.

[Mary jo]

I checked back with the available opportunities last week and they had grown a lot!!! Finally, there were some options in Knoxville. We have gotten a date lined up to volunteer at local food bank for a 4 hour shift. I think that is very reasonable and I'm looking forward to it.
Bottom line, if you can't find something now, keep checking back.