How long do I have to complete training?
After we email you your training material, you have about 16 days to finish training. You will get reminders if we haven’t received your completed training from you yet before the 16 days are over.
If you don’t respond to the final reminder or you don’t finish your training after the 16 days are over, you will be rejected as a volunteer.
How do I track my volunteer hours?
For both mentorship and essay editing programs, there’s no accurate/official way to track hours, so it would have to be based on how often you talk to your mentee(s)/how much time you spend editing essays. It’s up to you to be honest about how much time you’ve put into volunteering for our organization. A general estimate could be 1 hr/wk for each mentee and 1 hr/wk for each essay.
We recommend reaching out to your school/club to see how they would like to track your hours. On our end, we can definitely provide proof of participation in terms of how many mentees you’ve had and/or how many essays you’ve edited. We can only provide official hours if you’ve been on a panel for our webinars! Just shoot us an email explaining what you need!
My mentee hasn’t responded… what do I do?
Please email your mentee two days after no response and ask if they’re doing okay or if they have any questions! If you still get no response, that leads into our next Q&A!
Can I get another mentee?
When your current mentee is finished asking questions and for advice or you want another mentee just because you have extra time, email us at throughthevineofficial@gmail.com so that we know you’re available for a new mentee!
If you don’t email us, we won’t know when to assign you a new mentee. We will try to match you with a new one as soon as possible, but please remember that we need to make sure that you and your new mentee are suitable matches.
What happens if I don’t complete my assignments on time/at all?
We check in with our mentees twice a month via surveys in our newsletter to verify if they’ve been in contact with their mentors. We also have access to the essays that high school students submit for editing, and we can check the suggestions that our essay editors have made.
If you don’t complete your assignments on time/at all, we will decide the course of action to be taken. It is important to note that termination of your volunteer position will be likely.
I’m an essay editor — what happens if I get busy during the school year?
First course of action: Email the student and CC us (throughthevineofficial@gmail.com), asking them if they can give you more time to edit the essay or just let them know when you’ll have it done by. Communication is key here!
Second course of action: If that’s not possible or you have no time to edit in general, please email us using the subject line “Transfer Request“. We will then try to transfer the essay to a different editor.
What if I wish to stop volunteering?
Please email us at least one week in advance about ceasing your participation at Through The Vine.
If you’re currently mentoring a student, we ask that you include who your mentee is in your email to us so that we can assign the student another mentor. We also ask that you tell the student that they will be switched to a different mentor.
If you’re currently assigned an essay to edit, we ask that you complete editing that assignment first, but still email us in advance so that we won’t assign you another assignment.
Through The Vine 