Ed Watkins of Winning Endeavors (W.E)
Proving that the American Economy is Dependent on its’ Volunteers!
Ed Watkins of Winning Endeavors (W.E) designed the first community wide survey to determine the level of economic dependency that America has on its’ volunteers.
St. Louis, MO: “Residents in St. Charles, Lincoln, Warren and Franklin counties volunteered more than 15.4 million hours last year, according to a recent survey, and now, community leaders would like them and others to volunteer even more. Area civic leader Ed Watkins announced the beginning of an areawide volunteer initiative Wednesday morning after the annual great St. Louis prayer breakfast at the Edward Jones Dome.
Leaders of 200 groups and companies recently commissioned a survey to figure out how much time people spent volunteering. They learned that last year, people volunteered at 1,750 nonprofit agencies, churches, civic groups, local governments, hospitals and schools. The economic worth of their service is almost $278 million, the survey said.”
Watkins is the co-founder of Volunteers Impact Prosperity (VIP). VIP is a Communiy E-Network with a vision to connect individual Serving, Earning, Learning, Leading (SELLing) needs with opportunities provided by non-profit social enterprise associations, civic groups, health facilities, human service agencies, local governments, places of worship, recreation organizations and schools.
www.vipenews.comThanks to Title Sponsor, Thrivent Financial and regional sponsor, Brown Smith Wallace, volunteers can receive a free safe and secure Volunteer Time Account to count, verify, record and report their volunteer hours, their tax deductable mileage and related volunteer expenses as well as a central location to keep all cash and in-kind contributions. Contact Tim Ritzel at tim@vipenews.com