Sign up for Make a Difference Day

Hundreds of volunteers will be working around Marquette County to help those in need later this month.

October 26 is Make a Difference Day, a nation–wide day that celebrates helping neighbors.

Northern Michigan University’s Volunteer Center has been coordinating the day in Marquette County for about fifteen years.

“What we do here at Northern is we get people out in the community to send us a service request form.  Mainly it’s to rake leaves, get ready for winter, stuff like that,” NMU Volunteer Center Volunteer Coordinator Seth Kratz said.  “And then we’ll get student groups to volunteer, and we’ll match them to clients out in the community.”

“The morning of, (volunteers) come in at six o’clock in the morning, we’ll start lining at the doors.  At seven o’clock we open the doors, we give them a free t-shirt, rakes, and a breakfast.  Then the go out in the community.”

Most of the work done by volunteers are raking leaves and other small projects that last a few hours.

“We have a lot of people that need their windows washed, so they do a lot of that,” Kratz said.  “There’s a lot of indoor washing, furniture moving, stuff like that.  Some even need painting.  Last year someone needed a sandbox built, so it’s all up to the group.”

To either sign up to have volunteers come to your house or be a volunteer, you can sign up until October 16.

You can sign up by visiting NMU’s Volunteer Center’s website, emailing them at volctr@nmu.edu, or calling the center at (906) 227-2466.