National Volunteer Week wraps up tomorrow, and we did not want it to pass without naming, in our own voice, what is true year-round at BrightRoots: this place runs on the unpaid hours of an enormous number of people, and we owe them a public thank-you.
Last year, our volunteer coordinator logged just over 6,800 volunteer hours from 214 individuals. Those numbers do not capture the texture of what that looks like in practice, so I want to share a few small, specific stories instead.
The Rocking Chair Reader
Mrs. Vivian has been a Tuesday and Thursday morning fixture in our infant room for seven years. She is in her late seventies. She comes in at 9:00 a.m. sharp, settles into the rocking chair by the window, and reads board books to whichever baby happens to need a calm body to sit with.
She is here for two hours each visit. In a world that increasingly measures volunteer impact in spreadsheets, what Mrs. Vivian provides does not show up easily on a chart. But ask any educator who has worked alongside her, and they will tell you that the rocking chair corner is one of the most important square feet in the whole building.
The Saturday Workshop Crew
Our outdoor classroom — the one that opened in 2024 — was built by volunteers over four Saturdays in the spring of that year. The crew was about a dozen parents and grandparents, plus a handful of folks from the neighborhood who saw the call on our newsletter and decided to show up. None of them were professional builders. Most of them learned how to swing a framing hammer that month.
The platform they built has held up beautifully through two winters and an unprecedented summer storm. We walk past it every day and forget that it did not just appear.
The Translation Team
About a third of the families in our programs speak a primary language other than English at home. Our volunteer translation team — currently nine people, working across Spanish, Vietnamese, Somali, Arabic, Russian, and Mandarin — quietly translates our family newsletters, intake paperwork, and parent meeting materials so that no family has to navigate BrightRoots through a third party.
Most of these volunteers are themselves parents in our community. Several of them came in originally needing translation help themselves and decided to pay it forward. We have been the recipients of that generosity for so long it would be impossible to imagine running without it.
The Front Desk Regulars
If you have ever signed in at our reception window, there is a good chance the person who handed you a clipboard was a volunteer. Our front desk is staffed almost entirely by retired community members who rotate through morning and afternoon shifts. They greet families. They answer the phone. They take care of the small fires that pop up over the course of an ordinary morning. They learn the names of every child who walks through the door, and they remember them.
A few of them have been at the desk longer than I have worked here.
The Drivers, the Bakers, the Field-Trip Chaperones
I could go on. There are the people who drive our oldest vans. The grandparent who bakes for every family event without ever being asked. The parents who chaperone field trips and somehow make it look easy. The board members who give hours every month that no one outside of meetings ever sees. The neighborhood teenagers who help us set up for the Pancake Morning before the sun is fully up.
If I tried to list every name, I would leave somebody out and feel terrible about it. So instead I will say this: if you have ever given an hour to BrightRoots, in any role, that hour was real. It mattered. It was part of how a small child somewhere had a better week.
How to Get Involved
If reading this has stirred something in you, our Volunteer Page lists current openings, from one-time event support to weekly classroom roles. We do background checks for any volunteer working directly with children, but the application is short and our coordinator is patient.
You do not have to commit to seven years like Mrs. Vivian. An hour in the rocking chair, once, is also enough.
Thank you, everyone. Truly.
