My Give A Day, Get A Disney Day Adventure

In 2010, Disney will celebrate the efforts of 1 million people by giving away a 1 day park ticket in exchange for a day of volunteer service. Kicking this event off on January 1st, the site was *flooded* by people all looking for volunteer events they could sign up for. I will admit that I was one of those..desperate to find something that my entire family could participate in. Needless to say, I was very disappointed the first few days, not being able to find anything local. Even more disappointing was notes I was reading from others on Twitter, expressing the same frustrations. :( So close to giving up, I decided to wait a week.

Going back to the site a week later, I did some "in-depth" searching & stumbled upon the Gus A Stavros Institute Finance Park & Enterprise Village events. (Enterprise Village is a real-life, job & financial learning experience for 5th graders & Finance Park is geared for 8th graders) Well, just so happens that I have an 8th grader & that I was already signed up to volunteer for this event. Talk about luck!! Granted, this didn't accommodate my whole family, but I was excited to get in!! I called a friend of mine who also wanted to do a volunteer event & we were signed up together.

Having all the kids that I do, I have been to these field trips many times. I was given a group of students and was there to help them budget their finances & buy a house & car and try to experience some of the monthly financial budgeting we have to do as adults. I was lucky enough that Future Headache allowed me to eat lunch with her & even let me get my picture with her! What a lucky mom I am...lol.

There were a few other volunteers there as well, volunteering for Disney tickets :) These people were excited, planning on using their tickets for the Flower & Garden Festival, Star Wars Weekends & just regular visits.

After this, I decided I needed to find a volunteer event for the rest of the family. The Boy was lucky enough that his play group, Actors Reaching Out, signed up to act out The Little Mermaid for an after school care program. The rest of the family is signed up to help clean up after a ADA fundraising race. Of course, I will be participating again, but thats ok. We are just happy to be a part of this experience!

If you have not yet signed up for something, I encourage you to keep looking! It really is a rewarding experience..especially when you can do it together as a family!