Volunteer Guidelines & Policies
Please make sure you adhere to all of the policies mentioned below.
If you have any questions, please contact Abishek Chittathoor at abishek@weembrace.org.
General Guidelines
Be respectful and mindful of your language. As an organization whose mission to is to promote awareness of neurodiversity and children and adults with different abilities, we expect our volunteers to embody the spirit of inclusiveness and acceptance even when they are not volunteering for us. Please be sure to follow all the instructions on the forms you fill out.
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Remember, to get started with us, you must fill out the general volunteering registration form and create an account on our website! You can apply to volunteer after account approval! Here are some quick links to help you get started!
Timesheet
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You must fill out the timesheet after your volunteering activity. Submitting timesheets in an untimely manner will not be accepted.​
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Your commute time will not count towards the volunteering activity. Please only include the time you actively volunteered for/at an event or program.
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You can only claim up to 6 hours of community service per week, and a max of 75 hours per calendar year.
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Community Service Hours
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If you require us to sign off on community service hours you should have already indicated as such while filling out your onboarding form. If you did not but still need us to sign off on hours, please contact us immediately so we can change it for our records. Recommendation letter requests must be made at least 3 weeks in advance to when it is due. (Exceptions will be made on a case by case basis. For example: recommendations for jobs may only be available after submission of the application and will be provided despite the 3 week rule). You must have actively volunteered for us for at least 12 hours and 6 months. A recommendation or reference will only be provided during the year that you have volunteered. For example, if you were a volunteer in 2018, you can not ask for a recommendation for that volunteering service 3-4 years later.
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​If you have any, please submit documents showing that you need community service hours before you first start volunteering with us. You can email these documents to admin@weembrace.org with the Subject Line: Community Service Hours Documents.
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If you are not volunteering with us as a requirement to fulfill community service hours/have already met your required quota, there is no limit on how often you can volunteer with us!
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Buddy Match Policies
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Please fill out the timesheet form every time you meet your buddy.
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All communications with your buddy should only be via email. Please make sure to cc buddymatch.weembrace@gmail.com.
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​All meetings with your buddy will take place via Zoom. Make sure you send your zoom meeting link to buddymatch.weembrace@gmail.com If you are not sure which one to add, please contact us.
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​You can only claim 1 hour per week of community service hours. More than 1 hour a week with your buddy needs prior approval. If you would like approval please contact us at buddymatch.weembrace@gmail.com. You can only claim a max of 75 hours of community service volunteering in our buddy match program as well.
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Class Instructors
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Please do not share the zoom link for your class. We expect students to register via our website. If you are advertising this class to children and adults with different abilities and their families, you must do so with a link to your class page on our website.
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Feel free to share your class on social media. Make sure you are respectful while doing so. If you are unsure about whether your post is appropriate, do not hesitate to contact us.
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Try to ensure that your students follow the netiquette mentioned on our virtual classes page as much as possible. It helps the class run better for both you, the instructor, and all the students registered.
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​All of our virtual classes are recorded to share with families who can't make it. Please do not stop the recording!
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You must send a reminder to your students about your class either the morning of or the night before your class! This is because many families of individuals with disabilities have busy and unpredictable schedules, and can often use these reminders. You will be added to the appropriate groups once you are an approved virtual class instructor.
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If you have new weekly materials for your class, please message us those materials so we can communicate it to all the parents via email. You will need to send these materials on the group chat 3-4 days prior to your class.
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​We understand you might need to cancel a class. However, if you cancel a class less than 24 hours prior, for reasons other than emergencies (for example: forgetting about a test is not an excuse!), we will mark it as a strike. 3 strikes against your name will prevent you from continuing as a virtual instructor with us.
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Please be respectful and mindful of every participant's disability! This program is meant to provide a safe and adaptive way of playing sports to individuals who may have not gotten the opportunity to do so before.
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Adaptive Sports
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Please be respectful and mindful of every participant's disability! This program is meant to provide a safe and adaptive way of playing sports to individuals who may have not gotten the opportunity to do so before.
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The point of this program is participation and enjoyment! We do not pick teams, keep score, or choose winners.