The Stuffing Gang

Written by: Kate Snyder, Executive Assistant

Today I’m giving a shout-out to that faithful band of EECM volunteers who generously give of their time to one of the least glamorous (but oh so important) of volunteer activities – newsletter stuffing. The work is not sexy and the danger of paper cut wounds is ever-present, but these loyal volunteers answer the Call to Stuff several times a year with cheerful hearts and lightning-quick fingers.

EECM does four major mailings a year – three newsletters and a holiday card. And when I say “major,” I mean it. Each mailing is sent to more than 8,000 friends and supporters of EECM which means:

8,000 donation envelopes to stuff into…

8,000 newsletter and then seal with…

24,000 mailing seals (three per newsletter)

That’s a lotta stuffing. And if I had to do it by myself, I’d imagine it would take me at least a week. If I didn’t eat or sleep. I think last time around it took a combined total of more than 100 hours to get the newsletter appropriately stuffed and packaged. Lucky for me, we usually have a dozen or so saintly volunteers who show up for stuffing duty and between them get the job done in a couple days.

And, as is so often the case, a group of friendly people working together makes any job more enjoyable. They chat and laugh and catch-up while they work – many see each other only at stuffing time – and before you know it, the “to-be-stuffed” pile has dwindled to nothing and forty-some neatly labeled trays of newsletters are ready to go to the post office.

So three cheers (Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray!) for our wonderful newsletter volunteers. We couldn’t do it without you.