Give a Day Program

[fourfoxesinpa]

I think I said this before, but I know the Project Linus rep in our area. She told me that she got over 2000 request in the first two days. She is doing this by herself!

Shazam! That's awesome!

The lady that coordinates our local "branch" said, since the earthquake, they have arranged volunteers to make 600 fleece blankets and they are sending them to Haiti. (The blankets....not the volunteers.) That is a lot to manage when you're used to only having a handful of regular volunteers.

[schaery]

Did my craft today! Coordinator said I should receive my voucher email sometime tomorrow.

[lkat]

We delivered all of our blankets today! The woman who is the coordinator for that area was wonderful!!! She took the time to share some stories with our family about some of the children who have received and will receive the blankets. She had HUNDREDS of blankets in her living room (said every 2 weeks they deliver them where needed and start collecting all over again!) and let us look at all of them. Then she let the kids show her the ones they had made and shook all of their hands and thanked them for helping to make a child happy.

It was truly a wonderful experience! Will update when we get our vouchers, but she said we'd get the email in about 2 weeks...planning on using the fastpass option

[MdCaterer]

We signed up for the Linus Blanket program also. We needed to make 4 blankets, but we made 6 and I will be sending them in this week. I think it is a wonderful program. I agree it is even better than getting a free day for your birthday because you feel good about helping. I was lucky that they had this program available about 65 miles from here. We are lucky to be able to mail ours in.

[schaery]

Two questions: I completed my project last Tues. Feb. 9, but haven't received anything about my voucher yet. Checked my account but still says it hasn't been verified. How long does it normally take to receive the email?

#2. I have a friends whose girls earned a trip to WDW through a school fundraiser. They are going with a group and not staying onsite. Can they use their volunteer vouchers as a FastPass if they aren't staying in a resort?

[lkat]

Two questions: I completed my project last Tues. Feb. 9, but haven't received anything about my voucher yet. Checked my account but still says it hasn't been verified. How long does it normally take to receive the email?

I'm not sure about the precise rules that Disney lays out, but the woman who was coordinating our service told us that it would take Disney 2 weeks to email our vouchers from the day that she verifies that we completed it. She told us that as soon as the day arrives that we had put in and scheduled to do our service on the hands on network site, it pops up in her computer. Then she needs to verify it (which she said she would do that day...haven't checked that yet...) and then the 2 weeks, etc...

I've read that some people get theirs within days of completing service, but on the official site, I believe it actually says that Disney has up to 60 days max to get your vouchers to you. That's why I had planned our completion date more than 60 days before our trip, but it looks like that's not the norm for it to take so long.

If you're a little concerned that the coordinator hasn't even verified your service yet, it certainly couldn't hurt to get in touch with them to make sure they have you in their system I suppose...I'm sure you'll get them soon...let us know when you do!

And I have no idea about your second question...sorry!

[LuvMyBoys]

Two questions: I completed my project last Tues. Feb. 9, but haven't received anything about my voucher yet. Checked my account but still says it hasn't been verified. How long does it normally take to receive the email?

#2. I have a friends whose girls earned a trip to WDW through a school fundraiser. They are going with a group and not staying onsite. Can they use their volunteer vouchers as a FastPass if they aren't staying in a resort?

I can't help on question 2, but for question 1 -- I was told that the coordinator had to verify your service within 72 hours of completion. I would definitely give a call or send an email to the coordinator to check in. I would think that it should be showing up as verified in your account by now.

My parents did blankets for Project Linus, I dropped them off on Friday night and they were verified in the system on Monday. They received their vouchers from Disney on Thursday.

We just did our drop off yesterday, we collected toys/toiletries/other items for foster kids that are entering the system and don't have their own personal items. The coordinator said she would be verifying our service today. So I guess we will see if Disney is still being so quick on sending our the vouchers!

[schaery]

On the Disney website, it says please allow 2 weeks for verification so I'll try to be patient for another week, I guess.

[LuvMyBoys]

Just wanted to update that we received our vouchers today. Both the charity that we volunteered with and the project linus chapter my parents did were very on the ball.

I did send confirmation emails to both immediately after doing our drop-offs since they were both done outside of houses in drop boxes. I was so worried that someone would make off with the stuff!

Hope you get your vouchers soon!

[lkat]

Still didn't get our vouchers...but get this! I'm on the exec. board of the PTA at my daughter's school, and just got an email today that PA PTA's can participate in the "Give A Day Disney" promotion. So now I need to compile a list of the concrete volunteer opportunities that we have available at our school (like school beautification days in the spring and book fair and such that might be a little more relevant to this) and put it out there for the families. I'm really hoping this might get some more families involved at the school...for it being on the larger size of schools in our district, there really aren't that many volunteers...it's always the same people.

Funny thing is our new principal is a bit of a Disney nut, so he may be putting in a few extra hours for this I bet

Anyway, I'm really excited about getting this all set up for our school!