YOUNGSTOWN Trained volunteers are ready for service

Anyone interested in the Sept. 16 course may call (330) 782-5877.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Seventeen budding leaders are going forth as volunteers prepared to serve their communities after six months of training from Project Blueprint.
"I came here to learn a lot because I'm young," said Ryan Clausen, 19, of Austintown, who was graduated from the training in a ceremony Tuesday at Oak Hill Renaissance Place.
"When you go on a board, you need to know a lot of things, like finance, marketing, human resources and public relations," Clausen added. "I have a passion for volunteering, and I like to help people out, and by sitting on a board, I feel like I'm doing that," he explained.
Project Blueprint is promotes diversity on the boards and committees of nonprofit organizations by training people from under-represented population segments for membership. It is a joint venture of the Volunteer Services Agency and Youngstown-Mahoning Valley United Way.
To date, Clausen's volunteer activities have included working on a garage sale for Angels for Animals and serving on the teen advisory panel for the Mahoning County Volunteer Center.
Other goals
Clausen, a communications major at Youngstown State University, said he'd like to become a member of the board of the Community Corporation, parent of the Youngstown-Mahoning Valley United Way.
"What I've gained is a comprehensive overview of what is expected of a board member," another graduate, Yvonne Mathis, of Youngstown, said.
Mathis is associate director of diversity and multicultural affairs at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine and serves on the boards of the Meridian Services alcohol and drug treatment center and Associated Neighborhood Centers.
"Don't stop now. You have to keep giving. You have to give back," urged Dorothy O. Jackson, deputy mayor of Akron and keynote speaker for the program's first graduation ceremony. Jackson urged the graduates to teach others what they learned.
The program is a six-session training course on board governance, board and agency relations, board operations, financial management, fund raising and marketing. A new class begins Sept. 16. For more information, call Maureen A. Drummond, program director at the Volunteer Services Agency, (330) 782-5877.
"We need to always be striving to recruit more board members for our agencies and to assist our agencies in their efforts to maintain a board that reflects the diversity of our community," said Larry Moliterno, United Way's director of planning and community development.