Get Involved in Sustainable Capitol Hill
For the village, by the village! We’re a volunteer community group so that means we need you! There are many different ways you can get involved and help out. You can help out on a specific project or focus on a specific task. If you don’t see something interesting below, just reach out to us and we can discuss any ideas you have about how you can help. Some examples of the kind of help we need are:
- Researching practical sustainability, including potential event and class topics
- Teach classes
- Event planning
- Staffing the tool library
- Shaking money from trees
- Spreading the word about how awesome we are via social media, community events, and possibly some shouting from rooftops.
We need all the wo/manpower we can get!
The best way to get involved is to drop by and introduce yourself.
We always need help staffing the library. We’re also looking for people to help test and repair inventory. We’ve got a small space stuffed with lots of goodies and it takes a lot of effort to keep it all organized and put away.
Planning Meetings/Committees: We have meetings and committees to plan all sorts of things. I know, sounds like fun right? Seriously, we try to make planning fun, often starting the meeting with a potluck. Some committees you could call your own: tool library planning, fixer events, classes, social events. Check out the calendar for details. If you don’t like meetings, we’d still love your help! Below are the specific tasks we need to complete – just email us and let us know you’d like to help! And if there’s something else you think would help, but don’t see it on the list, let us know.
General Help
We have lots of little things that can get done in short bursts when you have time.
- Add Inventory to system
- Photograph inventory
- Talk with other tool libraries to see what tool repairs they do most, which tools they loan the most, what training manuals they have etc.
- Pick up donated tools
- Teach classes, once we are open
- Help staff the library
- Build a manual for volunteer staff
- And much, much more…
Help with Design
We’re still figuring out the details for the tool library. We need help with:
- organizing. we need both a great plan for storing all our items and materials to help execute it.
- help decorate. are you an artist or an interior designer who wants to help make our space look beautiful? we’d love a mural on our walls!
Outreach
We need to get the word out to the community so they know all about us. We need volunteers to:
- coordinate and attract members, new volunteers and donations – you could start small by just helping us define and recruit someone for this position. Plus we’ve won a matching grant, so all volunteer hours also convert to funding for us! The more volunteers the better!
- tabling – mostly at events on the hill like Sunday Capitol Hill farmers’ market on Broadway, the Capitol Hill Garage Sale, Park(ing) day and others.
- develop a sponsorship page and/or contact businesses for collaborations and donations
- distribute flyers at local businesses for customers (grab a few, and ask to drop them off whenever you are running errands!)
- be a fixer finder – find people who are willing to volunteer or sign yourself up and share your skills (maybe you could call up some retirement homes!)
- develop workshop topics and find instructors (do you have a skill to teach, you don’t have to be a professional, just know more than your neighbor?)
- be our Social Media gurus – keep on top of tweeting, Facebook, etc. including drafting social media content, & creating catchy hashtags (you know you’re already on there, why not help post as well?)
- write brief articles for our newsletter (be a published author!)
- plan an event for the community.
