Blockworker Beat: Eager Volunteers Quickly Locate New Blockworkers

The Blockworker Weat highlights “blockworkers” – residents who volunteer to deliver the Greater Park Hill News to their neighbors each month. There are currently 361 blockworkers delivering to 408 of the 516 residential blocks that comprise Greater Park Hill. GPHC is seeking volunteers to cover blocks that are not currently receiving the GPHN. For more information, contact Bernadette Kelly at gphc@ecentral.com.

By Ann Long, Blockworker Coordinator

On Saturday, September 30, GPHC was gifted with the energy of 8 pairs of workers. Several months ago, Dr. Mary Tellis of Solomon Temple Missionary Baptist Church contacted GPHC to  inquire whether our organization could provide some projects that would allow their members to donate community service time. What came to my mind was to obtain door-to-door workers to invite residents to be new GPHNews blockworkers. The team was encouraged to find block workers for ongoing distribution of the GPHNews – and they did it!

Under the direction of Barbara Evans-Small and Warren Small III, the following volunteers were trained to assist: Ramona Dolison, Michelle Williams, Bridget Patton, Mary Jackson, Emare Evans, Godess Smith, Aris Smith, Jay Martin, Tanisha Rogers, and Darleen Rogers. The volunteers received a half hour hands-on training session.  Warren agreed to act as a resident as I demonstrated how to approach a resident when seeking new blockworkers. Then, one-by-one, three of the group were selected to role-play these newly learned “volunteer-to-resident” skills, one-on-one with Mr. Small. In the spirit of teaching everyone how to overcome potential difficulties he asked them questions about the ‘job’, and played a disinterested as well as an eager resident. Finally, with bundles of GPHNews and invitation flyers in hand, all were dispersed to blocks that had not received the paper on a regular basis for many years. Returning to the GPHC office, they provided GPHC with six new blockworkers!