The city of Fort Lauderdale is about to observe 100 years of incorporation, and to help honor the city’s centennial celebration, the Mayor has asked residents to take part in a special challenge. The Mayor’s Volunteer Challenge – A Year of Giving Back is geared to honor the city by asking citizens to take the time to give back, by volunteering their talents and time through various types of community service projects. The challenge calls for 100,000 hours of community service to be performed starting this past March, and ending in February 2011.

Any volunteer projects that are completed through civic, religious, fraternal, school, neighborhood and other organizations will be tracked by the Chair of the Council of Civic Associations, Genia Duncan Ellis. Hours will be entered into a barometer that has been placed in the lobby of City Hall, letting residents know how far along the city is in reaching their goal of 100,000 community hours. To help volunteers easily track their hours, a Web page has been created that allows visitors to input their volunteer project and contact information, and then offers the option of emailing, faxing or mailing the form, so that hours can be tracked.

“We are really looking for any type of community service project, from waterway cleanups to graffiti removal, picking up trash, high school organizations that volunteer, working with children in parks, mainly any type of volunteering where you are giving back time to the city of Fort Lauderdale and its residents,” explains Petula Burks, public information specialist for the city. “The most important thing during this challenge is for people to know to go online and record their time there, even if it is an hour. Whether it is one person, or a group of people volunteering, make sure you are documenting all of it, so that we can get an accurate count.”

With a 12-month time frame, surely every resident of Fort Lauderdale can give an hour or more of their time helping someone or something who needs it. Mayor Seiler feels that, “the citizens of Fort Lauderdale are not only going to step up to the challenge, but will surpass the 100,000 volunteer hours.”

If you feel led to help give back to the city of Fort Lauderdale and lend a helping hand, visit www.fortlauderdale.gov/volunteerchallenge to track hours, or call Maxine Singh at 954-828- 5005 or Petula Banks at 954-828-4742 for more information.