Get Involved 101

Get Involved 101

Thank you for your interest in getting involved with Project HEAL. Your level of involvement is up to you. Your inspiration and hard work can truly make the difference in the lives of others. Additionally, most chapter advocates say that they find their service to others to contribute to their own healing. If you have a personal experience with eating disorders or body image concerns, please put your own recovery first. In order to be able to help another, we must first take good care of ourselves! Our priority is for you to enjoy your volunteer experience! We have new chapter mentors and volunteers who are just an email or phone call away to help coach you through a successful fundraiser.

The primary responsibility of a Project HEAL chapter is to help with fundraising for our treatment scholarship fund. As you can probably imagine, we receive far more applications than we can fund. The more fundraising we can do, the more scholarships we can award!

Chapters also work to create an event theme that somehow reduces the body image obsession in society that often contributes to the development of eating disorders. To be an active chapter, we just ask that you complete a minimum of: (1) one fundraising event and (1) outreach event, each year. Most often, the outreach events also serve as a 2nd fundraiser. If you can do more, great! Some chapters like to hold regular meetings in the community, which we encourage but do not require.

GETTING STARTED

It’s easy! Just email the volunteer team to state your interest in getting involved with Project HEAL. You will be sent a brief questionnaire and from the information we receive, we match you with a Chapter Mentor who can help you get started and help you narrow down a fundraising project. Your Chapter Mentor will then send you the forms you need to activate your chapter or volunteer project.

High School / College Chapters: Most schools have a formal policy for starting a new student club or organization on campus. You can start by checking in with your guidance counselor, student activities department, or student government council. We will work with you to ensure you have everything you need from Project HEAL to follow your school’s chartering process. Most often, you will need to have officers and a minimum number of members to qualify as an official student club or organization. Some schools have an open application process and others may only allow chartering at certain times of the year. We can help you navigate through your school’s process!

Independent Chapters: If you are not interested in starting a chapter affiliated with your school, you also have the option of chartering an independent Project HEAL chapter within your state. Please indicate this preference when contacting the volunteer coordinators so they can research any filing requirements that may be necessary with your local government.

One Time Volunteer Project: If you are simply interested in helping with a one time project, please just let us know what you have in mind: NEDA Walk, an online fundraiser, an outreach event, etc…We can also use volunteers with expertise in certain areas such as grantwriting, marketing, publicity, and fundraising. We are flexible and believe that whatever you can offer will make an important difference in many lives.