Volunteers from the Associated General Contractors of America spent a day at Give Kids The World Village in Kissimmee, repairing fences, adding safety features, and doing landscape and painting projects.
Brian Turmail, a spokesperson for AGC Charities, described the effort as part of an annual volunteer day.
“One of the things that we do every year in advance of our annual convention we organize a volunteer day where we bring in contractors from all over the country who spend a day fixing up a worthwhile facility,” Turmail said.
“Our annual convention starts tomorrow. We’re bringing about 2000 contractors from around the country...We like to give people a chance to kind of have some fun, get to know their colleagues from around the country, and do something worthwhile in advance.”
Give Kids The World Village provides free dream vacations to critically ill children and their families, allowing them to visit Orlando’s theme parks without cost.
The projects the volunteers worked on will help keep the village safe, attractive, and welcoming for the families it serves. The improvements they made in one day are saving the non-profit time and money.
“They’re doing great landscape work, painting projects. If we were to try and do that internally, that can be a 2 to 3 month project because that really disrupts then just general maintenance and repair and housekeeping around the property, or we would have to pay for an external resource to come in and do that as a contracted job,” President and CEO of Give Kids The World Village Caroline Schumacher said.
Right now, volunteer time is especially valuable, as charitable giving nationally has declined. A report by philantrophy.org found that nonprofit giving has declined by $65 billion since 2021.
“We’re just incredibly grateful for anyone who gives up their time or their treasure. When you’re a nonprofit, what that means is everything that you have is either donated or purchased with the donor dollar,” Schumacher said.
Volunteering and nonfinancial support remain options for people who want to help even if they cannot give money.
“There’s always ways to get involved, whether you just actually become a mission ambassador or someone follow them on social media, repost their stories, engage with them, then volunteering at an organization,” Schumacher added.
For more information on Give Kids The World Village, click here.