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FLY Law Program’s First Virtual Volunteer Training

Due to COVID-19, all of FLY’s volunteer training had to be conducted virtually. Our staff approached this new endeavor with both excitement and nervousness. They were stepping into the unknown, but with great communication and preparation, the SCC Law Program was able to recruit 15 new volunteers for this year’s Fall semester! The training itself was a huge success, and our staff were able to tackle each item they set out to teach our volunteers. 

Special shoutout to all our FLY staff members for coordinating the training and making sure our volunteers had all the materials they needed; from the curriculum, volunteer paperwork, tools to address Virtual classroom management, feeling comfortable in the space, and so much more. Not being able to train our volunteers in person was something FLY had never done before, but our staff approached it with enthusiasm, and were able to break down the lesson plan as well as keep up the energy in this virtual setting. The volunteers were so excited to start off this semester. Here are some of their thoughts: 

“I appreciated the various interactive methods of learning incorporated. This helped me stay attentive, whereas training where we’re just being talked to tend to make me lose focus quick” 

“I wanted to say how impressed and appreciative I was leaving the training today. Even though I didn’t know anyone on the call personally, I felt comfortable and learned a lot just in those few hours. It’s very rare for an organization to leave such a great impression. But I was impressed about how organized and structured everything was. I’m so excited to start and to learn so much from you”

We are forever grateful for the opportunity to provide our services and inspire folks who not only want to educate our youth about the law, but also build relationships and lead them to successful outcomes. Here are the “Why I FLY” statements our volunteers made on Day 1 of training:

AC/SMC

Our Law Program in Alameda County and San Mateo County collaborated for their first virtual volunteer training, and really went the extra mile to make their training interactive and innovative. They revised the entire LRE curriculum to align with the new 1-hour program session structure, completely changed the training agenda to align with the shorter training times, and successfully distributed necessary training and semester essentials to volunteers. 

They were joined by a total of 38 volunteers and used a new platform called Hopin, which allowed them to keep some of their usual training activities, such as the on-time prizes and stick figure activity in the Orientation and Rules Lesson. They also created a comprehensive social justice expo, providing more than 20 resources that encourage social justice action for our volunteers. This included justice system reform petitions, podcasts about policing, and virtual social-justice oriented events and webinars. 

We couldn’t be more excited to engage with volunteers, not just within FLY, but with systems change work as a whole within our communities. According to one volunteer, this was the best virtual training she’s had so far! 

There were definitely a lot of learnings and takeaways from our very first virtual training, but at the same time also so many great wins. We hope to continue to inspire and be inspired by our amazing volunteers!