Volunteers: The back bone of TEDxSalem

Orga­niz­ing and putting on TEDxSalem takes a lot of work, and much of it goes unseen and unrec­og­nized. Usu­al­ly, that’s a good thing. If things go smooth­ly, you don’t notice those hard­work­ing folks in the back­ground.

That’s why now is the time to rec­og­nize our vol­un­teers. There are duties avail­able for every kind of vol­un­teer. You could just give your time for one day, or you could be more involved in build­ing the event.

Every one is need­ed and appre­ci­at­ed. Why should you get involved? Well, I’ll let our team speak for itself.

Tra­cy Rose Tor­res: I vol­un­teer because I want to keep great things hap­pen­ing in Salem. Tedx def­i­nite­ly falls under the cat­e­go­ry of great things. I may not be the best event orga­niz­er or net­work­er in the com­mu­ni­ty, but I feel like being there to help the peo­ple who are have an eas­i­er time is some­thing I can do! I became a vol­un­teer through be and try to help them out when­ev­er I can. I was a PA for Car­lee Wright, and real­ly is that a tough job? I think we have as much fun as we do work!

Car­men Her­nan­dez Armen­dariz: There was a call for vol­un­teers and I answered it. I did­n’t know a thing about TEDx. But as I looked around and found some of the TEDx talks online I thought how great it would be to hold one in Salem and won­dered if any­one would attend the event here in Salem. I worked on the side stage dur­ing the event help­ing with switch­ing screens from the Illu­mi­na­tion logo to the Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions last year. This year I’ll be receiv­ing, review­ing and help­ing the speak­ers with their pre­sen­ta­tions and dur­ing the event switch­ing from the logo to the Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions. LOL Keep your fin­gers crossed!

Lau­ra Heald Hofer: I vol­un­teered with Ted because I LOVE the whole con­cept of TED. 

I went in with an open mind and ready to help any­where and came out of the expe­ri­ence more enlight­ened, ful­filled and in awe of what a TED event is about. Giv­en the chance I would vol­un­teer for TED again in a heart­beat! 

I ran the “Love Let­ter” sta­tion and was lucky enough to be able to dis­trib­ute some of the Love Let­ters peo­ple hand­ed back to me to give out. 

Spread­ing kind­ness and hap­pi­ness with oth­ers through words, sto­ries and ran­dom acts is a won­der­ful way to cre­ate aware­ness.

A tru­ly amaz­ing event. Thank you TEDxSalem.

Scott Hoss­ner: Vir­tu­al­ly the entire staff at Allied Video Pro­duc­tions vol­un­teered at TEDx Salem because we were, quite sim­ply, excit­ed to help bring this amaz­ing pro­gram to Salem. Our goal was to, from a tech­ni­cal stand­point, help ensure Salem’s TEDx was on-par with the nation­al lev­el TED pro­grams. It was excit­ing to be a part of it!

Jyll Smith: I vol­un­teered for TEDx Salem last year because on more than one occa­sion I have geeked out on TED videos. So when I heard Salem was hold­ing one I knew I had to be involved. Though I did­n’t get to see many of the pre­sen­ters I did make new friends all while doing some­thing I love to do…coordinate peo­ple to make sure they are hav­ing a great time.

If you’re inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing this year, please con­tact us at mindie@tedxsalem.us or find us on Face­book! Also, don’t for­get to buy tick­ets here.