Volunteering at GRB Thanksgiving 2016?

[Reefmonkey]

Has anyone volunteered at George R Brown Convention Center on Thanksgiving Day and can give feedback?

 

I know Thanksgiving is a long way off, but I'm asking now for the following reasons:

 

1. It's a New Years resolution for me to get my (currently) third grade daughter into volunteering, so I want to plan and commit our calender for the year now while the impetus is fresh. We're doing Trash Bash this spring (which I've done before and took her about 2 years ago), but I really want to help focus her away from the holidays being about consumption and more about giving to the needy and I thought the classic volunteering on Thanksgiving would be a good start.

 

2. I figure the GRB Thanksgiving Dinner being the big one, time slots for the morning through noonish fill up fast, with people wanting to go to their own family dinners after that, so wanted to know how far in advance I would need to sign up to get a spot that works with our usual extended familial obligations.

 

3. I figure we aren't that far past last year's Thanksgiving so peoples' recollections of their volunteer experiences will still be fresh.

 

 

So, the feedback I'd like to know about volunteering for Thanksgiving at the GRB is:

 

1. Would you recommend it for a 9 year old girl?

 

2. How far in advance does one need to sign up to get a mid-morning through mid-day slot?

 

3. Does it feel like you're actually needed/appreciated/doing something worthwhile? While most of my volunteering experiences have been extremely positive, I've had a few that weren't, and some of those were high profile volunteering events where there were more volunteers than the organizers knew what to do with, so a lot of volunteers were given kind of pointless busy work. Other negative experiences seemed to be where there were cliques of people who all knew each other and/or did the event every year and weren't welcoming to newcomers. Any concerns like that to the GRB Thanksgiving event?

 

Thanks for any feedback