So if you’ve chatted with me at all in the past few months or read this blog at all in January, you’ve probably heard (to perhaps an annoying degree) that I enjoyed volunteering at the Sundance Film Festival this year. It seriously was an amazing highlight in a year that already has too man highights for a highlight reel. I hadn’t had that much fun in a long time–let alone at a volunteer event. In February I received my “final” official message from the coordinators informing me of the methods to get connected to the festival again in 2011. Sure, I feel some connections as various films from the festival are now hitting the mass market or as my travel allows a coffee visit with some volunteer friend in their hometown, but for the most part, the experience is technically over.
That’s why I was surprised on Monday.
I received an email from the Sundance Volunteer Coordinators.
Why? Because April 18-24th is National Volunteer Week. They wanted to thank the Sundance Volunteers (again! they did this several times throughout the festival). At first I thought it was a generic email, but then I as I read it has some comments from my various supervisors at the festival highlighting some of my personal contributions.
If you’ve been to my ACTIVE APPRECIATION workshop, you know how much I love this email:
A) The comments were incredibly SPECIFIC. I can’t believe that my supervisors had the time in their schedule to write these thoughts down. We were pretty busy during the festival–yes, there was a lot of fun–but it was a pretty hectic schedule.
B) The comments focused on the INDIVIDUAL. A generic email to all volunteers would have worked, but Sundance took the time to data-merge something to customize it for the recipient. It made me feel as if Sundance valued MY service.
C) It was so UNEXPECTED. I really didn’t expect to hear from Sundance again until August when the Alumni volunteer process begins, but there was an email for me on Monday just saying “thanks again.”
So my challenge today is to recognize those volunteers around you. If you can, volunteer a bit this week. Make something happen.
Who knows… you may bring a smile to someone’s face.