With National Volunteer Week scheduled for April 7 – 13, you have the opportunity to affirm the volunteers who serve in your ministry and community.
Here are a few ideas to get you started.
- Give a gift certificate from a local restaurant.
- Have children use a permanent marker to sign a thank-you T-shirt.
- Give 2 movie tickets to an inspirational film. (Several coming up this month!)
- Personalize a tote bag.
- Fill a coffee mug with a bag of their favorite ground flavored coffee.
- Create a display or kiosk in your lobby that features volunteers serving in action.
- Give Whoppers candies with this note: “Thanks for your whopper service to our church!”
- Give a relaxing bath experience with a gift of bubble bath or scented, floating candles.
- Give a prayer journal with a personalized note written in the inside jacket.
- Give a cookie cutter with a note that says, “Thank you for molding kids’ lives.”
- Give a seed packet with a note that says, “Wow! You’re planting God’s Word in young children’s hearts!”
- Give plastic visors with “Top Volunteer” painted on them.
- Give a Mounds candy bar with this note: “You’re making a mound of difference!”
- Call a different team member each day just to see how the person is doing.
- Go to lunch with a volunteer — a different person each week.
- Send an encouraging note with a Scripture verse.
- Share a valuable ministry resource to equip them for success.
- Take your volunteers on a retreat to refresh and refuel.
- Send a thank-you card with a personalized note.
- Plan a team fun day where the church picks up the tab.
- Establish a convenient parking place for “volunteer of the month.”
- Create a comfortable coffee area for volunteers only. Provide fresh pastries and fruit.
- Give a Bar None candy bar with this note: “Bar none, you’re the best!”
- Greet each volunteer by name.
- Mention a specific person’s contribution in your church bulletin or newsletter each week.
- Provide free child care for volunteer training events.
- Use chalk to write volunteer affirmations on the sidewalk leading to your church so everyone can celebrate the good things your volunteers do.
- Write a personalized letter from Jesus to the volunteer.
- Believe in people. Say “I know you can do it!”
- Rent a horse-drawn carriage to transport your volunteers from the parking lot to the church entrance on a special recognition Sunday.
- Give a volunteer his or her favorite dessert.
- Frame a photo of a volunteer serving in action.
- Clip and send a funny cartoon or joke that a volunteer will appreciate.
- Give a journal for a volunteer to keep track of the God sightings in their ministry.
- Give your volunteers ministry “business” cards.
- Plaster a thank-you note on the church marquee.
- Give a book of stamps with this note: “You’re a special delivery from God!”
- Give a container of wild berries with this note: “You’re berry special!”
- Give a certificate for 18 holes of golf to a volunteer who loves to golf with this note: “You’re a hole-in-one for our ministry!”
- Give a new fishing lure to someone who loves fishing with this note: “Our ministry is hooked on you!”
- Arrange free baby-sitting for a volunteer to have a night off.
- Wash a volunteer’s car while they’re at church serving.
- Give a bag of peanuts with this note: “We’re nuts about you! Thanks for bringing your kids out of their shell.”
- Mow a volunteer’s yard — or in the fall you can rake leaves.
- “Kidnap” a volunteer for breakfast.
- Take students over to weed a volunteer’s garden.
- Give the gift of a back massage from a professional massage therapist.
- Give a coupon for a latte and scone at a local coffee shop.
- Ask volunteers their opinion—it shows you value their ministry experience.
- Arrange for a limo to pick up a volunteer and take them to church one Sunday.
[Adapted from Children’s Ministry Magazine]
