It's the push, some feel, Kansas needs to be number one. That's number one in terms of volunteering. A new website was launched Thursday evening as a "one-stop-shop" for finding volunteer opportunities in the state.
Press conferences tend to be pretty ceremonial. You have a seat, you listen to speakers, but Thursday night everyone filling the chairs at Wichita's Exploration Place, became part of what the press conference was all about.
The gathering marked the launch of volunteerkansas.org and all the scrubbing people were doing marked the first official project the website organized.
"We're just cleaning the chairs to help exploration place," said Karl Funk.
Volunteerkansas.org provides a place where people can go to look for different volunteering options - like cleaning 400 chairs for Exploration Place.
"There are a lot of organizations that are trying to promote volunteerism and I think the more we can work together to get to that common goal, the better," said Nola Brown, the website's executive director.
That was the point organizers were trying to make on Thursday. A job that would have taken one person hours, took only minutes with hundreds of hands to help.
Funk adds, "I'm fairly new to the Wichita area and to Kansas and I've been looking for volunteer opportunities and this was a perfect opportunity to find out about organizations that need help."
Kansas currently ranks 8th in terms of volunteering, but with a new portal to get people involved, the state may get what it needs to move into that number one spot - about 70,000 more volunteers.
