Volunteer Encouragement On & Off the Field
There is something special at Special Olympics Arizona, and that is the encouragement that Heather Turkes, CVA shares with everyone around her. From the athletes to her colleagues, we can see her joy and passion for volunteerism and inclusion.
Our VolunteerPro Community Manager, Chelsey, was able to catch up with Heather for this month’s VolunteerPro Member Spotlight where she told us about Special Olympics Arizona’s programming and shared some encouraging words that all leaders of volunteers can use from time to time.
Chelsey: Thank you so much for agreeing to be the VolunteerPro Member Spotlight. I know we all have heard of the Special Olympics, but tell me a little bit about the people your organization serves and how your volunteers add value to your program.
Heather: The Special Olympics’ mission is to provide sports training and competition for individuals with intellectual disabilities. It was started many years ago and is on an international level, but each state has its own program.
Since it was founded, Special Olympics has grown to be so much more than just sport training and competition. We have all sorts of different programs to support individuals with intellectual disabilities, such as health programming and educational programming.
We have connections with schools here across the state of Arizona, lots of different opportunities for leadership, personal, and professional development for our athletes, which is what we refer to as those that participate within Special Olympics Arizona.
Our whole focus is really on inclusion. We have unified sports where athletes will work with partners to form lifetime bonds and have a great time. There is a lot of learning for both sides through those unified models and just bringing the message of inclusion across the board in many different ways.
Like so many organizations, we couldn’t do what we do without the many folks that help us throughout the state. All of our coaches, our team volunteers, and those working with our athletes weekly and daily are volunteers.
We also have volunteers that help us run and operate all of our competitions and the different programming that we offer. We have clinical volunteers helping through our health programs. We really have volunteers supporting every little aspect you can imagine within the organization.
Chelsey: That’s really cool. When I think Special Olympics, I always think of athletes running on a track, athletic events, and things like that. It sounds like there’s so much more with wraparound services that you’re offering. Can you tell me a little bit more about your unified sports program?
Heather: Sure. We have our unified sports component, which is a program that is offered in our school programming as well as for adult athletes. We offer all of our programming for anybody of any age, not just youth. The unified sports program is an athlete competing alongside somebody who does not have intellectual disabilities in a team sport.
For instance, we have a unified flag football team, a cheer team, and lots of other sports that we offer in that unified model. And then we also have our unified champion schools program, which is where we work really closely with a lot of the schools across the state to provide a four-pillared program for those schools that are involved: unified sports, inclusive youth leadership, whole-school engagement, and inclusive health.
The Unified Champion Schools program aims to bring together everybody in the school, not just those that have one period where they focus on those unified sports as their PE credit. It really focuses on bringing everybody and growing the message of inclusion.
Chelsey: So how did you get into volunteer management and leading volunteers?
Heather: I was lucky to stumble into it right after college. I studied Marine Science for my Bachelor’s degree. And while I was in school, I worked at the Special Olympics Hawaii office as an intern for a couple of years.
That’s where I fell in love with the Special Olympics mission and the athletes that we serve. Then once I graduated, I started as an intern in an organization that focused on ocean conservation, but I started on the volunteer management team and absolutely loved that.
I had always been a volunteer myself and volunteerism was always important in my family. Volunteer management kind of fit into my personal values really well.
Chelsey: What is the biggest challenge in your program right now?
Heather: Honestly, it’s kind of tricky to say what one challenge is, but it is just not having enough time to do all the things I want to do. We have really strong volunteer numbers. We’ve had a really good comeback from COVID, so I’m really, really lucky to not have a huge issue there.
I’m glad that recruitment is not a challenge of mine, but I would just love to continue elevating the volunteer experience, increasing engagement, creating new volunteer roles, formalizing more of our policies and procedures.
And those are things that of course just take time, and I can’t do it all at once. That’s my biggest challenge as well as just allowing myself to focus on one thing at a time and, and set more realistic timelines.
Chelsey: You have a few projects there on your plate! What are you taking on first?
Heather: I would say one of the more ongoing priorities is just elevating those policies and procedures to detail out for Special Olympics Arizona from our international guidelines. I am making sure that we have clear policies that are fully equitable.
I am really detailing out each of the policies that we have and eventually putting all of those together into one volunteer handbook that has everything in one place.
Chelsey: It is nice to have the policies all in one place, especially when caring for a vulnerable population. What do you love most about your job?
Heather: It’s the athletes, it’s those that we serve. They’re the whole reason that we do what we do. Seeing our athletes, especially out at competitions and events…they just brighten up your life.
They’re always so happy and so thrilled to be doing whatever they’re doing, whether it’s a new sport that they’re competing in for the very first time or first gold medal or just getting access to health care that they haven’t been able to find before.
They’re always so joyful and so happy to just be around everyone. So that’s for sure the number one, the athletes and interacting with them when I’m able to, and obviously our volunteers are right behind them too.
I love the volunteers. I’ve been able to build really incredible relationships with some of our volunteers over the past year. And we also have a really amazing staff at Special Olympics Arizona. That’s something that has been a huge game changer in my enjoyment of the day-to-day.
You know, a lot of days in volunteer management can be tough and it’s just kind of the nitty-gritty and you might be dealing with difficult situations. But when you have a team behind you that supports you and is focused on professional development and it’s just fun to be around, that just makes the world of a difference.
2016 Special Olympics of Arizona State Track & Field Event at Raymond S. Kellis High School in Glendale on May 5-7, 2016. (Greg Herriman / Special to Trib)
Chelsey: How do you find your athletes and then on the other side, how do you find your volunteers?
Heather: It’s kind of tricky because we have so many different models and roles. The athletes usually come in through one of two pathways. One is through schools, whether it’s through the Unified Champion Schools program or if we just have a school that signs up as a team for a sport. Another way is our community programs.
There are a lot of programs throughout the state that offer a place to go and programming for individuals with disabilities. Once they’ve graduated from high school, they go through community programs to get involved, whether it’s through a sport or other programming options.
We also have individuals that just reach out to us directly that say, “Oh, I have this family member or I’m interested in getting involved myself.” Then we usually connect them with a team that’s already established or create a new team.
On the volunteer side, it totally varies because we have folks helping in so many different roles. We have our coaches that come in through one of those schools or community programs. Sometimes they’re one of the program staff, or are a parent or a family member of an athlete.
It may also be classmates in the school for those in the younger student programs, as well as just again, family and friends that want to get involved or people that just reach out and they love sports and they want to do something.
We also have our corporate volunteers. Our day of volunteers, I would say, are our largest number just because they can give just once. And that schedule is very, very flexible for events.
They select a competition or an event that works for them, and sign up for one or as many shifts as they want. We have a sign-up online and try to make it super easy for them to get involved.
Chelsey: I’m so glad that you get so much support from the community! For the athletes and their loved ones, that really does make a big difference.
Heather: We do have the benefit of having that Special Olympics name recognition. A lot of folks know the name “Special Olympics”, even if they don’t know all that we do. That is something that I feel really makes the recruitment process a little bit easier.
Chelsey: What would you say to someone thinking about joining VolunteerPro?
Heather: I would say do it. I think that there are so many different kinds of facets of VolunteerPro that fit into whatever you’re looking for, whether you’re a new volunteer manager that has no idea what’s happening and just needs some overall guidance, to somebody who just wants the community to ask a question of other volunteer managers and get some insight from other folks who have experienced similar issues.
One of my favorite things is all of the resources that live there forever. If you can’t make one of the webinars, you can always access it afterward, whatever works for your timing. The video vault, all of the resource pages that are super helpful when you’re looking for something in particular and you don’t want to scour all of the many, many resources across the web and books and podcasts and everything.
There’s guaranteed something in VolunteerPro on that topic that you’re looking for. And that’s been super helpful for me in many, many instances.
Chelsey: If you had one piece of advice to give a new leader volunteers, what would it be?
Heather: Oh man, one piece would just be for you to remain calm. There’ll be so much coming at you. I think it’s really important to stay calm, take a step back, look at what your mission is, what your goal is for whatever task at hand.
And let that drive you instead of getting bogged down by all the little minute day-to-day things. I think if you stay mission-focused, you’ll find passion in whatever you’re doing and it makes it all worth it.
Chelsey: How do you keep busy outside of work?
Heather: I am always busy. My husband and I have lots of fun home projects and we’re working on building a garden. I also am super “planty” with houseplants on the inside. So, taking care of the many houseplants in my office and around the house.
We have a cat and just got a new puppy this summer, too. They definitely keep us busy, keeping them entertained and learning a lot through that process with the new puppy. We like to be pretty outdoorsy, too.
Chelsey: Do you have any final thoughts for our readers?
Heather: I think just for volunteer managers, again, just enjoy what you’re doing and don’t get bogged down by those day-to-day tasks, because we really have a really unique opportunity to work with the amazing people that are volunteers.
Whatever that role looks like within your organization, find the joy in that because it’s really a gift to be able to see all of that from our perspective, looking in on volunteers getting to experience their experiences and hear their stories.
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