School staff member helps keep folk festival free
Laura Napky, executive assistant to the associate deans in the VCU School of Social Work, utilizes her Community Service Leave to serve with theRichmond Folk Festival.
The event is held annually each October and attracts more than 200,000 people to downtown Richmond’s riverfront to celebrate the roots, richness and variety of American culture through music, dance, traditional crafts, storytelling and food.
For the past seven years, Napky as been a team leader for the “bucket brigade,” volunteering to walk around the festival and collect on-site donations, which help to keep the festival free for attendees.
“Once the festival organizers saw my energy and commitment, they asked me to come on board as part of the planning team,” Napky said. “I now assist with the logistics and management of the hundreds of bucket brigadiers who volunteer during the three-day weekend.”
Napky estimates she spends about 40 hours on-site during the festival weekend, helping to ensure the team has everything it needs to successfully solicit donations. She said planning, however, begins eight months before the festival, creating and updating volunteer manuals for team leaders, running bucket brigade training and designing t-shirts.
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