The Volunteer and Community Partnerships Department is honored to wish you and our over 45,000 UNICEF Volunteers a happy Volunteer Week, April 21-27. Each year during this week, we select a handful of volunteers to receive the President’s Volunteer Service Award. These volunteers represent the tens of thousands of people across the country who help us extend the UNICEF mission to others. Join us and visit the UNICEF Action Center to learn more about our volunteers and activities!

The U.S. Fund for UNICEF is partnering with the Global Poverty Project to launch Global Citizen—an enduring online community and movement against extreme poverty with real-world successes. Global Citizen is a web platform that will unite and amplify the calls of the movement to end extreme poverty.
And this September, as world leaders gather in New York for the UN General Assembly, we’re hosting the Global Festival—a massive advocacy, free ticketed concert that will put the movement to end extreme poverty in the headlines. This historic event will bring Neil Young with Crazy Horse, Foo Fighters, The Black Keys, Band of Horses, K’naan and 60,000 change makers together on the Great Lawn in Central Park, where we will raise our voices and urge our leaders and fellow citizens to do more to tackle extreme poverty.

Last month, from May 7-11, over 1,000 U.S. Fund for UNICEF volunteers participated in Live Below the Line, a project implemented by the Global Poverty Project. Volunteers were encouraged to live in solidarity with the 1.4 billion people (25% of the world’s population) surviving in extreme poverty, by living off of just $1.50 per day for food for five days. UNICEF Volunteers of all ages took part in this “…movement of passionate people willing and able to make a meaningful difference to those who need it most.” Collectively, UNICEF supporters fundraised over $29,000, which will go directly to supporting UNICEF’s relief efforts in the Sahel.

On November 6, 64 members of Team UNICEF took to the streets of New York to run in the 2011 ING New York City Marathon. In total, the runners raised over $240,000 to support UNICEF’s general fund programs worldwide. The photos below are of the team taken on the morning of the race and the cheering station in Brooklyn, NY.

The U.S. Fund for UNICEF Campus Initiative program will host the third annual Campus Summit in New York City, October 8-10, 2011. The Summit is a 3-day program of skills-building workshops, peer-led trainings, keynote speeches, an opportunities fair, participatory activities, and stories from the field from UNICEF staff.

The U.S. Fund for UNICEF is proud to announce the 97 recipients of the President’s Volunteer Service Award, a national honor offered in recognition of volunteer service and in conjunction with National Volunteer Week, April 10 – 16, 2011

This Sunday is the last day to register restaurants with the 2011 UNICEF Tap Project! UNICEF Tap Project restaurants help lead the effort to spread awareness about the global water crisis by asking their patrons, during World Water Week, to donate $1 or more for the tap water they usually enjoy for free.

The UNICEF Tap Project kicks off its first regional trainings of the season in the next two weeks. We would love for you to join us at these to learn more about the campaign and meet fellow volunteers. Click here for locations, times and to register.

Are you a runner? Be apart of a movement, the biggest movement in New York! This year UNICEF is participating in the 2009 ING New York City Marathon in November. We’re looking for committed individuals to join Team UNICEF!

We’ve heard from our four young people who are representing the United States at the Junior 8 Summit, shadowing the G8 summit in Japan. Here’s their third blog posting, written by Manogna, who represented the United States when meeting with the G8 leaders.

Today was an interesting day. It was the day we were all waiting for! The nine representatives of the J8 delegation, including me, left an hour earlier than everyone else to get ready for the meeting with the leaders. During this meeting, we went over possible answers to various questions that could be asked and the basic schedule that we needed to follow.