MLK Day of Service Volunteer Sign Up Sheet (free, online)

How to set it up

A day of service is one morning spread across several sites: a park cleanup, a sorting shift at the food pantry, a painting crew at the family shelter, care packages at the community center. Each site has its own address, start time and a cap set by the people who run it, and the sheet should look the same way. One section per site with the cap as the count, a team lead row at the top of each, and a short supplies list at the bottom for the gloves, trash bags and water that someone has to buy.

The mistake is a general interest form in December and a round of assignments in January, by which time half the list has changed plans. Let people pick their site when they sign up, in mid-December, and the sites fill in the order people actually want them. One tip: ask each site what its real cap is before you post. A pantry that says 'as many as you can send' means twelve, and the sheet should say twelve, so the thirteenth person lands on the waitlist instead of standing in a doorway.

Questions people ask

How does a volunteer pick a site?

Each site is its own list with the address and start time on it. A volunteer opens the one they want and takes a spot. When the site hits its cap the row closes and the next person goes on the waitlist, and if someone cancels from the link in their confirmation the spot reopens for the first person waiting.

A site cut its number the week before. What happens to the people already on it?

Lower the count on the row and the page shows that list as full. Email everyone on that list from the page with the two sites that still have room, and they move themselves. The still needed line on the page tells the rest of the group where the gaps are.

Groups come together, like a youth group or a team from work. Does every person sign up?

Yes, a name and email each, which is how everyone gets their own confirmation and the reminder the day before. Add a question at signup for the group or company name so the team lead can keep them together.

Why not a paper sheet or a Google Form?

A paper sheet lives in one place and fills up with the first people who walk past it. A Google Form takes forty signups for a row that needed two, and you find out in the spreadsheet. An online sign-up sheet closes each row when it's covered, sends a reminder the day before, and gives every person a link to cancel so the spot reopens. See the side-by-side with Google Forms.