For the 2024 edition of Hands On Atlanta Week, presented by Delta Air Lines, more than 3,000 volunteers supported over 50 nonprofits and schools across 300 projects! The focus for the week prioritized projects around Food Security and Hurricane Helene relief efforts, but volunteers created meaningful impact in all kinds of areas including building bikes, park beautifications, tutoring elementary students and so much more!
We’re excited to introduce our newest Hands On Hunger cohort! Since 2018, in partnership with the Atlanta Community Food Bank, we’ve led 10 cohorts of pantries through our intensive 2 year capacity-building program, with this being our 11th.
To celebrate National Volunteer Week, we've hand selected some of our most promising volunteers in our community to shine a spotlight on. Today, to help kick-off Global Youth Service Day, we recognize Jaquan Riggins for his outstanding efforts to serve Atlanta.
Jaquan is a senior at Atlanta's Washington High School ( currently, prepping for graduation) and has been volunteering with Hands On Atlanta for 3 years. We dropped in on him recently to talk about his work in the community.
To celebrate National Volunteer Week, we've hand selected some of our most promising fellows in our Civic Leadership Program to shine a spotlight on. Our civic fellows manage service projects at designated non-profit partner sites by recruiting volunteers, overseeing service days and providing education to volunteers as to the mission of their partner agency.
To celebrate National Volunteer Week, we've hand selected some of our most promising fellows in our Civic Leadership Program to shine a spotlight on. Our civic fellows manage service projects at designated non-profit partner sites by recruiting volunteers, overseeing service days and providing education to volunteers as to the mission of their partner agency.
To celebrate National Volunteer Week, we've hand selected some of our most promising fellows in our Civic Leadership Program to shine a spotlight on. Our civic fellows manage service projects at designated non-profit partner sites by recruiting volunteers, overseeing service days and providing education to volunteers as to the mission of their partner agency.
On April 21st from 9:00 pm – 12:00 am, the Changemakers are stepping out with the High Five Late Night Party at The Gathering Spot. This party promises to be a tremendous time with live music, an open bar, tapas and a wine/spirit pull. In the words of Changemakers Board Chair, Everett Steele, “High Five Late Night is a great opportunity to share the impactful mission of Hands On Atlanta in a fun, social environment.”
What a game. There's comfort in camaraderie, rallying behind a fellow, feathered football team. Congrats to the Super Bowl LII champion, Philadelphia Eagles.
Almost as exciting as the game itself, the commercials have taken on their own importance as a part of the "Big Game's" pageantry. A growing trend from company's is to showcase a stance surrounding some our most polarized social issues. You might remember last year's Airbnb "We Accept" commercial.
Certainly not every company set out to make a statement, but it was impossible to avoid the civic tones struck in a large portion of ads. Will this trend continue? Will companies continue to put themselves forward as the moral compass within our country?
As the head of a nonprofit, I love seeing billion-dollar marketing budgets being used to spread awareness about our communities most pressing needs. Here are 5 ads that stood out to me:
Budweiser promoted their effort to send clean water to Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico after the recent hurricanes. According to Budweiser, their Cartersville, GA brewery has provided 2 million cans of water this year alone.
Like Budweiser, another beer company, Stella Artois this time, focused on water. Matt Damon, co-founder of Water.org, promoted their partnership and encouraged viewers to buy a beer chalice (here) to support safe drinking water in developing countries.
Coke's ad promotes the diversity of its brand and products and links that to the diversity of its customers, aiming for a message of unity and inclusion.
WeatherTech promotes a nationalist message with their commercial, featuring the building a factory alongside images of the USA flag. The commercial ends with: “At WeatherTech, we built our factory right here in America. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be?”.
In Dodge's "Built to Serve" ad, the use of an excerpt from a Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speech probably seemed like a good idea, but the backlash online has the company looking tone deaf and opportunistic. But, people are talking...
Is this nothing more than smart advertising, or are companies taking BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s recommendation (see Larry Fink’s open letter to CEO’s), and taking more responsibility for their effects on society?
What do you think about this trend? Let us know on Twitter.
P.S. My favorite non-political ad was “Alexa loses her voice.” What was yours?
“And one of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.”
Reverend Dr. King's passion for service and helping others is at the core of our work. Our mission and values to ignite a passion for service and create life-long community volunteers through civic engagement, diversity and inclusion, community partnerships, and the pursuit of excellence read more like a quote from one of his iconic speeches than something we try to pursue everyday.
To say the MLK Day holiday is important to us is an understatement. Our small, but mighty team, dedicates months of our year to planning and executing a series of events to try and honor his legacy and commitment to service the best we can. Because this year is the 50th Anniversary of his assassination and the MLK Day of service fell on his birthday, we went big and asked you to go big with us. Once again, you stepped up and 1,800 volunteers showed up to serve at 30 projects across metro Atlanta!
Special thank you to all of our sponsors, volunteers, nonprofits, and schools who came together to help make it all happen. Keep reading to view more details and to view photos from our 2018 MLK Day events.
On Sunday, January 14, 2018, nearly 200 corporate and civic leaders came together at The Gathering Spot to break bread and barriers at the Hands On Atlanta Signature Sunday Supper. Hosted by 11Alive's Cheryl Preheim, the evening was full of meaningful dialogue and featured a moving performance from actor Leon Rogers, as he relived portions of Reverend Dr. King's "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution."
The focus of the night was a fireside chat with Prosperity Now's Dedrick Asante-Muhammad and Nathaniel Smith of Partnership for Southern Equity. The two shared the stage to explore Reverend Dr. King's "Poor People's Campaign" and take a closer look at the issue of economic inequality then and now. Dedrick brought a national perspective, while Nathaniel held a local lens on the challenges (and work) being done right here in Atlanta. Other speakers included Jay Cranman, Hands On Atlanta President and CEO, V.P. of Community Relations for Coca-Cola North America, Lori George Billingsley, and the CEO of Points of Light, Natalye Paquin.
The diverse room of attendees had a chance to then discuss the issues presented to learn from each other and form some solutions on how to solve the problem of economic inequality.
The Signature Sunday Supper was complimented by 50 self-hosted Sunday Suppers across metro Atlanta. In partnership with Civic Dinners, changemakers stepped up to host and attend these unique and fun events, sharing dinner and dialogue. Final numbers of attendees are still rolling in, but you can see some of the highlights here.
To celebrate Reverend Dr. King's birthday, it was back to what we do best: rally ATLiens in service! In total we had 30 projects and almost 1900 volunteers come out from English Ave. all the way up Buford Highway.
It was cold, but that didn't stop volunteers from making their impact felt across the city. Parks, nature preserves and schools hosted several beautification projects, building benches, gardens, painting, and more! Volunteers delivered meals to seniors, planted trees at several cemeteries, packed medical supplies, and more.
The day of service was larger than anticipated, thanks to the incredible support from the 20+ corporate sponsors who came out help us celebrate. A huge thank you and special shout out to our title sponsor The Coca-Cola Company, who's been supporting our MLK Day of Service efforts for almost 30 years!
Inspired to act? Consider making a donation or sign up to volunteer!
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