Empowering Families Through Volunteering with Victoria Hannley

In this heartwarming episode, featuring Victoria Hannley, founder and CEO of  Tucson Family Volunteers shares her inspiring story, her passion for giving back, and the incredible work she's doing to empower families and transform communities. She is a mom on a mission! Get ready to be inspired and motivated to make a positive change as you listen to Victoria's incredible journey of spreading kindness and creating a better world, one volunteer project at a time.

Reach Out, Stay In Touch  + Volunteer with Victoria

https://www.tucsonfamilyvolunteers.org/

contact@tucsonfamilyvolunteers.org

520.261.4230
Tucson, AZ 85750 

Transcript

Theresa Cesare: 0:06

Hey guys. Welcome to Heart to Talk the podcast. I am the host and creator Theresa Cesare My intention for this podcast is to deliver to you wisdom, inspiration, and consciousness. Through solo episodes and conversations amongst insightful people. It is my greatest honor to bring to you talks that come from the. welcome to another empowering episode I am thrilled to introduce my amazing guest today, Victoria Hanley. Victoria is a mom on a mission. She's the founder and CEO of Tucson family volunteers, an incredible organization that focuses on creating family volunteer projects. That are both fun and meaningful. Get ready to be inspired by Victoria's story in the amazing work she is doing to make a difference in the lives of families and communities. Welcome Victoria to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. This is my first ever podcast. So this is very exciting. We have known each other for a long time. To see what you've done and the impact is just so inspiring. Tell us about yourself. So I grew up in Canada, but my mother is from Ohio, so I'm a dual citizen, of both great countries. I grew up playing golf. My father was in the golf business, so I love golf. I don't have the time to play golf, but someday, someday I'll get back to it. and right now, I mean, I'm very busy focused on, continuing to create Tucson Family Volunteers, which I say it's like a literal kitchen table startup because. I do it out of my kitchen. and we're always looking for, moms, dads, grandparents, responsible teens to help us if you're interested in helping to lead one of our projects. Thank you so much. And I love that you talked about it's just a kitchen startup and really for anybody listening, we all get inspired by something we want to see. So there's that saying, like, if there's something you want, It seems like that's what you did and, here you are, what would you say were the cornerstones for making this happen? You have to have courage, right? You just got to like be committed, but what about for you? Because anyone listening, I was like, gosh, I've always wanted to do that or I want to start this. Do you have any tips for them? I would just say, just do it. I I don't consider myself like bravest person who can just put themselves out there. But. I've had to force myself and I think every time you do something that scares you, it becomes easier the next time and you get better at it and I think tap into what you like that, whether you're getting paid or not, it's just something you would do regardless. So like for me, like I love putting together a project. And so all of these little volunteer projects, they're just these fun little projects that you get to be super creative and envision the start to finish and you, can set up the space and the project to how you envision it. And so that's one of my skills. And so tapping into that, has led to what has to the success of to some family volunteers. So I would just say, that expression, you know, do it anyway, force yourself as scary as it is to just do it because it gets easier, the more you do it. So that being said, Victoria, tell us all about Tucson family volunteers. Well, Tucson Family Volunteers is a family volunteering organization works with a wide variety of local nonprofits to develop and create family friendly volunteering projects that are specifically geared for kids ages 5 and up. What inspired you to create Tucson Family Volunteers? Well, do you know that kids who are younger than 14 are often not invited to volunteer in a nonprofit. I didn't know this until a few years ago when my oldest daughter who, she's now 15, but when she was about age 10, I was trying to find places within the community to take her. Into to volunteer. And I thought she was at a great age to start exposing her to the realities of life and kind of get her out of her like little school, home and activities bubble. And so I began calling around to a whole bunch of different nonprofits here in town. And I kept coming up against, no, some organizations just didn't allow families with kids. Others were only open on weekdays when kids obviously are in school. And so I just found all of the nose I was getting. Super frustrating. And so I channeled all that energy into what has now become Tucson Family Volunteers and our whole goal Having gone through the experience myself personally is to take the guesswork out of finding places to For families who want to go out into the community and volunteer. So take the guesswork out of finding places for them to go volunteer with their kids. And because we work with, young kids specifically, everything we do is researched and coordinated and created. Specifically for kids ages five through 13 or kind of like kindergarten through eighth grade age range, which is sort of that missing niche and all families have to do is sign up for a project, show up on the day of and go out and volunteer. That is so incredible. So what is your mission ultimately? Well, at the core of everything we do is a belief that kids are never too young to start volunteering and, kids are capable of so much more than I think we think they are, and so our approach is super simple, is to make volunteering something that a child wants to do. Again and again, and we do this as I mentioned by creating projects that are fun as well as like meaningful and impactful Like they actually help someone here in the community and projects are done as we know kids have a short attention span So we try not to do anything longer than an hour to maybe 90 minutes. They're super active So we have different stations that kids can kind of bounce around to They're held on either weekend mornings or after school and as we've come to find out the most important thing that kids love is that they get a snack at the end to take with them. Oh, I love that too. I absolutely love this. Can we talk about what are the benefits of volunteering together as a family and why it's needed to craft next generation leaders? Well, we focus. All of our family volunteering projects on the needs within our own local Tucson community and all of our projects fall into what we call six cornerstones of kindness. So all of our projects focus on helping people who are unhoused or experiencing food insecurity. The environment, community beautification, health and well being, as well as projects that are designed just specifically to raise awareness or empathy around a topic. So that can look like cleaning up a park or bagging hygiene items for the unhoused or creating art kits for new Americans. Or one of our, fan favorites is where kids and families get into wheelchairs and they play wheelchair sports alongside other kids. Adaptive athletes the reasons to volunteer are endless. So whether you're in your forties like I am, or you're a four year old child, I mean, there are so many good, positive, make a difference, make an impact reasons. However, when it comes to like specifically family volunteering, I like to think that it's, that hour that you all spend together, it's good solid quality time that you are spending together Whether the entire family's there or it's just mom with the kids or grandpa's there or the caregiver So it's positive time spent together as we know, as parents, we're always battling screens. And so for that hour ish, I mean, you're not texting or snapping or playing a game because your hands are busy, writing a card to an isolated senior or bagging a kit of, dry food goods to then be given to someone. So, for that hour or so, you know, you're spending time together as a family, you're working together. You're all kind of working towards the same common goal. I like to think that, volunteering helps kids, especially the more you do it, develop a give back mindset. And it provides them with a sense of purpose outside of, just like their homeschool friends, activities, all the little things that, are important, but you know, Make up their own little small worlds right now. So it gets them out of that. And, when you go to volunteer, possibly driving to a side of town that you don't drive through every day, or you're interacting and meeting people, that you don't normally interact with, or you're hearing about needs and causes that you may not be familiar with. So just. It's just a great positive way to get kids out of what they're comfortable with. And, it also gives you, most importantly, something to connect with your kids on. We all hear about the importance of, like, having conversations when you're driving. And so when you're going to the project or coming back, it's a way to, talk about like what you're going to do and why is this project you did today important and who is it helping? It also gives you a chance to connect with your kids on like, what values do they have and what, what's important to them. And I remember there was a mom who participated in one of our projects, one of our park cleanup projects. And she said she had no idea that like her seven year old daughter was so passionate. About like the earth until they had participated in, in one of our projects. So just as a great way to tap into what interests your kids so that you can do more of that. Our goal ultimately is to craft what we are calling like next generation leaders. And these are kids that. You know, we'll see a need who, will work to solve it because they already have the basic volunteering skills and then we'll ultimately put more good into the world and the younger child's exposed to volunteering and giving back, then that becomes a habit and those habits become the foundation for our communities, future leaders and philanthropists and activists. And our goal is to make volunteering accessible to whoever wants to do it. Whatever family looks like, anybody can come out and volunteer. I love it. What are ways for listeners to get started on volunteering? Well, I mean, we try to make it like super, super simple and easy for families. So, the easiest is simply to go to our website. And sign up for, we offer in person projects as well as we offer at home projects that families can do. Families, schools, troops, you name it, can do out of, you know, the comfort of their home. And, you sign up for a project, you show up on the day of, and you volunteer. And we encourage families to get on our newsletter because that's where we promote our projects first. And they tend to go really, really fast. They tend to fill up very fast, which is great. A good problem and we are working on, adding more projects to our calendar. So more families in Tucson can get out and volunteer. Volunteering is, no different than anything we want to start. So it's, making it a habit. So whether you want to do that once a month or once a quarter, or just, a few times a year, maybe around, special holidays. it's just making it a habit and making it fun. I can speak, to my own experience with my own three kids. I have had to, incentivize them afterwards with a donut, you come, you help me, let's do this thing together and then I'll get you a donut on the way home. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that because you're connecting. We're all, we're all spending time together. We're doing something good. And here's a little treat up, at the end and it kind of makes it fun for them. And they remember that. I absolutely love that. Any last mentions or thoughts about Tucson family volunteers? Well, I would just say, speaking as a super busy mom. I have three kids, they all play different sports. They all have their own different activities. My husband travels periodically for his job. So I completely get. Feeling like stretched and overwhelmed. And, the idea of like having to put like literally one more thing on your calendar can just feel like a lot, however, volunteering, like together with your kids, it's just a great way. And like an hour or so time to just check so many feel good. family togetherness boxes and just like one fell swoop. I love that. So we're going to dive into the closing questions. Victoria, what is your favorite affirmation to help you stay motivated and inspired? I have one that I just, I find myself repeating it. especially when I get like overwhelmed is You know, good things happen to me. I'm surrounded by good and it helps me feel a little bit more in control in an often out of control situation or out of control world. I love that. Next question. What is your favorite quote? Well, to kind of piggyback off what we said earlier, whenever I'm in a new situation, new situation that requires courage and bravery, or just when I'm having feelings of doubt or insecurity. I think about parts of that famous Eddie Roosevelt man in the arena speech and specifically there's a section in this very long speech where He says it's not the critic who counts the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly who errs who comes up short again and again because there's no effort without error and shortcoming and And what I like about this quote that I think about often is, again, the importance of like putting yourself out there and doing something regardless of what others are going to say about you or how scared you're going to be because you're actually out there in the arena. I love that. It gave me goosebumps. I and the next question, what is your favorite book? Well, I am a super avid reader. I have always several books on the go. It helps that I drive my kids around a lot. So I always am sitting in a car. However, I love a good like fiction beach read. And so right now I, I am about to start the new, Annabelle Monaghan book called Summer Romance, and I've loved all of her other books so far, so I'm really excited to dive into that book. It's perfect because it's summer too. Yes. And the last question, what do you want to be known for? Well, I, I hope, I'm hoping, hopeful that my kids will think of me and remember me as being a good and decent mom. however, I, and I also hope that they, will see me and remember me as a model, for being unafraid and for trying to be brave. new things, even with like no experience. I have no background in running a non profit and yet I have just, you know, through the power of Google and YouTube and talking to other people and free webinars online. I mean, I've just been able to put this thing together and try something new. So I hope I'm a model for them of doing what you want to do, even when you don't have the background or the experience and literally are afraid to do it. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. Please download, rate, subscribe, and share this podcast. Also, be sure to visit my theresacesare.com to check out my inspirational merch, connect to my social accounts, and much more may you continue to be filled with wisdom, inspiration, and consciousness. Otherwise, friends, I will be back in two weeks for another episode of Heart to.