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Confessions from a Parent Volunteer Junkie

By Debra Fendrich, Editor-in-Chief, Pioneer Drama Service 

I admit it, I’m hooked.  For the past three years, I have contributed endless volunteer hours for three months of the school year to my son’s performing arts program at his public high school.  As he brags about finally being a senior, fear grips my brain — only one more year to be involved!  Yes, that’s right, I actually look forward to giving my time as a volunteer every year.  And I’m not alone.  The school is blessed with a corps of parent volunteers that gives hundreds of hours of time to strengthen the program for their kids and ensure that the students’ time and efforts result in the highest level of success possible.

Sound like a dream world to have that level of support from your parents, with their vast array of skills and resources?  Read on and I’ll share my experiences as a volunteer so you too can develop your own parent corps of volunteers.

Okay, another admission — I volunteer more for selfish reasons than altruistic ones.  But it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m giving my time.  First and foremost, I volunteer so I can still be involved in my son’s life.  Face it, during the peak of the performance season, he spends more waking hours with the director than with me!  By lending my support to this time-consuming activity he has chosen, he sees that I’m his champion and that I believe in him.  Along the way, I get to know his friends and watch them interact together, and they feel comfortable with me being around them.  As a parent of a teen, it really doesn’t get much better than that!

In the process, I’ve developed my own tremendous group of friends in the other parent volunteers.  With our shared value of being involved in our children’s lives, we have a special bond that no doubt will continue far beyond graduation day next year.

Beyond these selfish reasons, the director also has a huge impact on why I’m willing to give so much time.  He has done a phenomenal job of letting the parents know that they are both needed and appreciated.  How?  He starts very early on, holding a parents’ meeting, where he defines and establishes two important things.

First, he gives us very specific, real tasks to do.  The more specific the better as far as we’re concerned.  What are the exact sets we’ll need to build?  What will be the costume requirements?  What props will need to be scrounged?  Ads sold?  Funds raised?  Dates of quick, nutritional meals needed at long rehearsals that plow right through the dinner hour?  He gives us both the big picture and the nitty gritty details and also lets us know what students we’ll be working with on these projects.

Even more important than this, the director develops leadership within the parent corps, so there’s one person in charge of costumes, another of sets, another of food, etc.  Not only does it empower the parents to move forward on their own and free him to have more time working directly with the students, but it also gives him a designated point of contact when he needs to give more information about a costume or whatever.  By breaking into committees like this with parent volunteer committee chairs, our parent meetings are smooth and efficient, even without the director being there!  (Can you imagine?!)  We meet briefly every two or three weeks to discuss our progress overall and evaluate upcoming needs, then we break into committees to get even more work done.  Whether the director is at these meetings or not, he has empowered us to the degree that we get an amazing amount of work done.

One thing that has really helped our group bond and work well together is that we have a communications chair.  If you want your parent corps to form a strong team, I suggest you ask one of the parents to create a website, a Facebook page or some way to keep everyone informed as to needs, upcoming meetings, etc.  (We also use this site to post our after production grown-ups only party to celebrate!)

So what can you as a director do after the production to show how much you appreciate the efforts of your parent volunteer corps so they’ll work just as hard next year?  You’d be amazed how much mileage you can get out of a simple barbecue, spaghetti dinner or even a potluck, either at your home or at the school.  They’ve given their time, now you can make some time for them.  Since the parents are now good friends, they’ll love the opportunity to socialize together without an agenda, even if you’re asking more of them by making the get-together a potluck.

Having the parents all together is a great time to recognize their contributions.  No worries, gifts of monetary value really aren’t necessary.  A simple certificate of thanks or a gag gift that’s been personalized for something specific that particular parent did will usually do the trick.  The more specific the “award” to generate a funny memory, the better, especially if presented with a quick version of the story for everyone else’s benefit.  (Quickest emergency hemmer!  Greatest garage sale scavenger!  Best dad at wielding a hammer, even putting his own thumbs at great risk!)

Perhaps the most important element to thank your parents and guarantee they’ll come back next year is to ensure that the students have somehow acknowledged their parents’ contributions.  It doesn’t take much — maybe by making a giant poster that all the kids sign.  Better yet, have some of them serve the dinner to the parents!  (And even clean up afterwards!)  Parents are higher than a kite when kids appreciate what they have done and recognize that the show wouldn’t have been as successful without the parents’ help.

In these years of budget cuts, parent volunteers play a more important role than ever in your program.  Not only do you have more demands that stretch your time ever thinner, but you have less money from which to create all the costumes, set pieces and props that you need.  A team of supportive and hard-working parents with a vast array of skills and resources can make or break your show’s success.  As the school year wraps up, now is the time to thank all of your volunteers who have helped you this year and plant the seeds to grow your parent corps even larger for next year.