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!

We all have moments in our careers that are turning points, and it can be a challenge to try and describe them. However, if we fail to do so, they may lose their value. So brace yourself—I’m about to share with you some incredible moments that I have experienced as a U.S. Fund for UNICEF Global Citizenship Fellow in Washington D.C. Warning: You may experience a sense of hope and inspiration when reading this.

Last month, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF hosted four regional student summits in different locations across the country. U.S. Fund for UNICEF student leaders came together to share challenges, successes and best practices for effectively educating, advocating and fundraising for UNICEF in their local communities. The summits took place in Houston, Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago. Over 400 UNICEF High School and Campus Initiative students participated in the summits, doubling the attendance of last year’s New York summit.

Calling all volunteers: You can now share your inspiring stories and experiences at the new UNICEF Action Center! Whether you are scaling the Rockies or longboarding in the Cali sun, we invite you to join us at the Action Center to connect with others and share our mission—achieving ZERO preventable child deaths.

This past weekend, I, along with 17 U.S. Fund for UNICEF volunteers, learned more about human trafficking at Free2Walk Boston. An annual event sponsored by the anti-trafficking group Not For Sale, Free2Walk proclaims no human being should be for sale. The event comprised a two hour guided tour of sites of the abolitionist movement in Boston.

As the newest members of the UNICEF Campus Initiative National Council, we met from August 24–26 in New York City at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF (USF) for an exhilarating weekend of training and learning. During this training we were introduced to USF staff, leaders and advocates to better understand how, in partnership with USF, we will effectively support over 120 UNICEF clubs and hundreds of student leaders. By exchanging best practices and discussing opportunities for future collaborations, we developed a work plan to further strengthen the Campus Initiative in 2013.