My Stoop

Copy Rights for Laura

MyFreeCopyright.com Registered & Protected

Monday, April 20, 2015

Earth Day Volunteer Appreciation Event

As a Director of Volunteers, each year I plan, create and execute a Volunteer Appreciation Event. This year the date I decided on was Wednesday, April 22nd. This is earth day and my theme this year is "Volunteers Make a World of Difference."

Oh, how I adore event planning. All these exciting ideas from Pinterest and other venues I have been a part of. It somehow all comes together. I just let the creative part of me take over.

Since my theme is "Volunteers make a world of difference" and it happens to fall on Earth Day, I really played with this like a kid in a sand box.

Creating a theme and event is so similiar to the process of writing. You just let go and let the process happen. I am sure many of you out there feel the same. I knew I wanted some globe shaped glass to hold something earthy for the theme as my center piece.

Out I went and scouted out different craft, dollar stores and flower shops . It was Michaels that I found my treasures that led me into a fun earthy center piece. I first bought a large bag of moss since the big bag cost less than a small bag. That was a no brainer. Then I looked for different round glass holders. Boom, there it was. Tear drop and circular glass globe containers perfect for making some type of earthy terrarium. The  pragmatic part of these is they had a hole in the front for watering. Also they had a rope on the top so you could hang them or put them on a table for decoration.

Then I went to different flower shops and landed at Bachmans. They were the only flower shop that had more than two or three air plants. Most of the flower shops that carried air plants had more Easter flowers or plants. You know your idea is leading to a creation when it happens so easy. It  is meant to be when you count out exactly the perfect amount of air plants that would soon be centerpieces on each table for each generous volunteer.

So, that is how my earthy, air plant terrariums were born. It was so fun to bring air plants back with Shells and rocks that I had found at Bachmans and dollar stores to put this idea together.

I trained a volunteer resident on the creative technique. I had planned on recruiting volunteers on Volunteer Match and Craigslist Community section for to do all 18 of them. It only took one three hour block of time to put these together.  I received input from the active living team and decided to put a colorful blue and green earth place mat circle under each of these. My event caterer had mirrors, so I thought circular transparent mirror, on top of Blue and Green earth cut out and on top of that the center piece. So much color, simple and beautiful and not costly. Each volunteer was to receive a give away of a little piece of the cosmos.  The Easy Breezy Instructions:

First put a light layer of decorative pebbles down on the bottom of the glass terrarium, then add in one small amount of moss in the middle of the pebbles and put a hole in it. Add the small air plant in this moss hole. Once the air plant is in the hole firmly, then create away. There is no right way, just let your creative juices flow. I tried to make all of them a bit different. I added white and colored sea shells and colored decorative rock.

Make sure you spritz your air plant and moss each day. You want lively, replicas of the earth to stand out at your earth day event. It is hard to kill air plants since they live by air, but they can tend to dry up a bit. I bought a 99c spray bottle at the dollar store to water them daily.
Have a fun Earth Day event and remember water your baby eco systems daily.