Bringing Christmas Cheer into the Community! (860) 581 - 3867
APPLICATION PROCESS & POLICIES
HELLO and WELCOME!
If you are interested in volunteering with CCMT, Inc., please read the following process carefully and then visit the Contact Us page and indicate your preference to apply as a STUDENT OR AN ADULT.
All volunteer opportunities are filled on a first come first serve basis.
This means the first people to fill in all their forms completely and provide a photo will be granted a Zoom meeting interview and then be able to volunteer if they are a good fit for CCMT and vice versa.
SENIORITY DATE
If we decide to accept you as a volunteer, the date and time we complete your interview with you (and your parents) will be considered your seniority date, not the date and time on your paper application. This could be the difference as to whether or not you will be able to volunteer for a specific project if there are a lot of applicants applying for the same projects.
STARTING THE PROCESS
Applicants must notify us in writing if they are applying as a student or an adult when filling out the Contact Us page. We will then email you the appropriate application to fill out in its entirety via DocuSign. The applications are explained below.
Student or Adult Volunteer?
ADULT APPLICATION PREFERENCE
If you are a high school student who is 18 years of age already and insist on filling out your own forms without any parental signatures or involvement and be treated more as a legal adult, you will have to fill out an ADULT volunteer application.
This application is much more lengthy and you may be subject to fingerprinting and criminal background checks which also requires a fee in the form of a non-refundable, tax-deductible donation during non-pandemic times and activities. These fees have been waived during the pandemic and will resume when we return to doing indoor or in-person activities in the future. This is what we do for adults as they work with minors.
CCMT takes security measures very seriously.
STUDENT APPLICATION PREFERENCE
If you are a high school student who is 18 years of age and have no problem letting your parents sign in the appropriate places, let us know that as well and we will have you fill out the STUDENT volunteer application (Part 1) with no fees, fingerprinting or criminal background checks required.
If you have a job or a sports commitment in addition to being in school, you will be required to fill out part 2 of the student volunteer application.
THE ONLINE DOCUSIGN APPLICATION
All applicants are required to complete their volunteer application in its entirety via DocuSign.
DocuSign is an online site that is safe and secure where documents, contracts and applications are signed legally with an electronic signature. Notifications travel to your email and ours through DocuSign.
Once all parties have filled out their parts of the application packet and it has been submitted to and received by CCMT, all signing parties will receive an electronically signed copy to keep for their records, and CCMT will contact to to schedule your interview. All parties involved will be reviewing your application packet together during the recorded Zoom interview with your parents to make sure everything is correct and acceptable.
A Team Effort
HOW DOCUSIGN WORKS
All applicants will receive the age-appropriate application packet requested via their personal email address. (Remember, CCMT does not have access or permission to communicate via school email addresses).
Student applicants under age 18 (or who are age 18 and agree for their parents to sign the application) will receive the application first. Once the student has completed, signed and submitted their application back to DocuSign, DocuSign will immediately email the application to the student's parent's email address so the parent can fill out and sign their portions of the application packet. This means THE PARENT'S EMAIL ADDRESS MUST BE A DIFFERENT EMAIL ADDRESS THAN THE STUDENTS EMAIL ADDRESS.
Once the parent has submitted the forms to DocuSign, all signing parties will receive a copy of the completed application in it's entirety for their records. We will review the application during your online recorded Zoom interview with the signing parent in attendance at the meeting.
LIABILITY WAIVER AND RELEASE FORM
In addition to the application, all applicants (both students and adults) are required to complete their Liability Waiver and Release from via DocuSign as well. The signing order / process will be the same as the application was. Students will fill their part out first, sign it and submit it back to DocuSign. Then DocuSign will email it to the parent's email address and they will sign their part as well.
MEDICAL & EMERGENCY CONTACT FORMS
Depending on the project you sign up for, you may be required to fill out some medical and emergency contact information. Virtual opportunities do not require this. All in-person projects and activities do. It is better to be over-prepared than under prepared. If a medical emergency arises, it should bring peace of mind to everyone that both you and CCMT have a good solid action plan in place in case an emergency does arrive.
YOUR SMILING PHOTO
All applicants must provide a clear, clean, professional looking JPG headshot photo where you are smiling for our recognition ceremonies and other general uses per the Liability Waiver and Release Form. Parents and Students, please familiarize yourselves with the Liability Waiver so you know what is expected of you. Specific details and instructions of what is and is not acceptable for your photo is clearly printed for you in your online application packet.
JPG images are the only format we are accepting at this time. If you submit your photo in any other format that we cannot convert, you will be required to resubmit your photo. Remember, we do not grant interviews without your photo.
Each of the 4 forms (Application, Liability Waiver, Medical and Photo) will be sent in one single DocuSign email for record keeping purposes.
Online Recorded Interviews & Assignments
SCHEDULING YOUR INTERVIEW
After we receive your forms and photos, we will schedule a 30-60 minute Zoom interview with you (and your parents) so everyone is on the same page and of the same understanding of which opportunity you are most interested in and what tasks will be required to complete that opportunity (if that opportunity is still open at the time of the interview).
Due to the amount of inquiries we receive, WE ARE NOT ABLE to grant interviews until ALL FORMS and your photo have been filled out properly and received. We do allow one 15-minute phone call for questions prior to receiving your forms and photos.
Please keep in mind that all Zoom meetings will be recorded and CCMT retains the rights and content of all such meetings for the safety of the students and the organization and record keeping purposes.
PARENT - STUDENT INTERVIEWS
The parent who signs your Application and Liability Waiver (and Medical if applicable) is the parent we require to be present at the online interview with you. However, both parents can attend the interview. We love meeting all parents!
Due to the DocuSign process, only one parent will be able to sign ALL the forms in all the appropriate places for the sake of consistency. However, we encourage both parents to go through the entire application process with their child together so everyone is on the same page. If it is still the preference of the non-signing parent to provide a signature to be added to the application, the non-signing parent can simply email us a statement that they would like their name to be added to the application by having CCMT attach that emailed statement to the application. If this is the parental choice, it is best that both parents attend the Zoom interview with you.
RECAP AND CONFIRMATION OF ASSIGNMENTS
After your interview, we will send you an email recapping your interests in each assignment along with the nature of each assignment to make sure everyone has the same understanding of what is involved, including deadlines.
You will be required to respond with a statement that you agree, understand and accept the assignment(s) as written per the interview discussion. You will also be given the opportunity to tell us if we misstated or misunderstood something, and if we did, we will correct the error and send out a corrected copy of the recap and ask for your affirming commitment of the corrected assignment via email.
Timesheets & Earning of Hours
TIMESHEETS
Every student volunteer will be required to fill out an itemized timesheet of all hours and minutes they have spent working on each of their projects. We do go on an honor system and the quality of work that is submitted is usually a pretty good indicator of the time claimed on the timesheet.
There will be a mandatory meeting at the beginning of the school year to help students learn how to fill out their timesheets properly and accurately. Students will receive credit for this meeting toward their overall hours for such training.
Interviews, Communication, Orientation and Training Meetings Earn You Additional Hours
One thing CCMT also does is credit you for the time of your interview, communication, orientations, trainings and exit interviews if you are accepted as a volunteer into CCMT and if you complete the projects you sign up for in their entirety with excellence by the due dates of the projects.
Do keep in mind that if you abandon any of your projects at any time, you will not be granted the time for your interview or other meetings or the time you put into an uncompleted or untimely project. (More on this in the sections below.)
EXIT INTERVIEWS, SERVO.CITY & ENTERING HOURS
We suggest that you do not enter in any of your hours onto Servo.City or with your guidance counselor until you have completed your assignments in their entirety. You will be provided a timesheet during the initial interview that we have developed and then we go over each of the timesheets during the "Exit Interview" via Zoom at the end of your project or service time. We also help you record your hours onto Servo.City if you desire some assistance with that. This means you get to claim the time of the exit interview as part of your hours as well.
VERIFICATION OF HOURS
CCMT is different than most other nonprofit organizations in the fact that you are signing up to perform or complete several tasks to complete a project over a specified period of time that could take days, weeks or months. Due to the nature of what we do, we have very very few projects to where you can do 1 or 2 hours and get credit and then be done with your assignment.
Soup kitchens, food pantries and some city clean up projects may offer such opportunities, but CCMT has projects that take longer to complete. We also give extra time to complete your projects so you are not rushed for time. Therefore, we do not grant any hours until the assignments are completed in their entirety, by their due dates and have been done with excellence.
Letters to verify hours are granted twice a year (Janurary and May) depending on how quickly you schedule your exit interview with us along with turning in your timesheets by the deadline date we request it. If you fail to respond by the submission date, your letters could be delayed up to 30 - 90 days after we receive them due to the nature of our compliance schedules as an organization.
Reference Letters & Verifying Employment
LETTERS OF REFERENCE
If you do a timely and excellent job on your assignments, we will include both a professional and personalized reference letter that you can use for college applications, other organizations or job applications. These letters will be emailed to you, your guidance counselor, New Haven Promise, National Honors Society or other organizations you have indicated to us and will become a permanent part of your files.
LETTERS OF DISMISSAL
If you are accepted as a volunteer and do not start any projects and have had no additional communication with us after the timeframe of the project has started, you will be considered as "dismissed" and will not receive any hours / time for the interview, phone calls or other meetings you attended to get you ready for the tasks. If you receive a letter of dismissal and change your mind and want to volunteer with us, you may be required to start the application process over from the beginning. These letters will be sent to your guidance counselor, New Haven Promise and / or the National Honors Society or other organizations you have indicated to us and will become a permanent part of your files.
LETTERS OF ABANDONMENT
If you quit or abandon your projects, do a poor or messy job to where you refuse to correct the job and we have to find or recruit another volunteer to “clean up or correct your mess” or if you miss a deadline, no hours will be granted whatsoever, and a Letter of Abandonment will be sent to your guidance counselor, New Haven Promise, the National Honors Society or other organizations you have indicated to us and will become part of your permanent files.
EMPLOYMENT REFERENCES
You are more than welcome to use us as a reference for employment, college, scholarships, internships or other volunteer organizations. If you did a great job for us, we have every faith that you will do a great job for others! We love to brag on our volunteers as often as we can.
Communication Requirements
PROMPT & TIMELY PHONE CALLS
If we cannot reach you via the contact information you provide to us on your application and that we verify during the interview and you miss important steps, changes or instructions to assignments or due dates, you may be putting your hours at risk. If you do not return our communications within 48 hours, we will contact your parents. If your parents do not respond within 24 hours, we will contact your guidance counselor. If they do not respond within 48 hours, we have the right to terminate your volunteer status. If this happens, we may consider you to have abandoned your assignment and a Letter of Abandonment may be issued and become a permanent part of your files.
If you are having trouble completing an assignment, have or experience other unexpected / extenuating circumstances that have come up, succumbed to a sudden illnesses or have changed your contact information, it is your (or your parent's) responsibility to keep us informed and updated with such changes in order to remain in good standing with CCMT and protect the hours you are earning. This is especially crucial around the time of additional Zoom instructional meetings, update meetings, deadlines or tour dates.
COMPUTER FILES & TITLES
When you complete certain assignments and your timesheets, you will need to download them all onto your computer so you can email them to us for our records. You should add your first and last names to the name of the documents when you save them onto your computer. We will include a subject line for each of your submissions, which may be a good name for each of the documents you save onto your computer. Just make sure you save all your forms in a place on your computer where you can find them quickly and easily.
SUBMITTING YOUR FORMS PROPERLY
ALL EMAILS YOU SEND SHOULD HAVE A SUBJECT LINE ON THEM. Emails that do not have a proper subject line on them could result in delayed actions and responses on our part.
WE USUALLY PROVIDE SPECIFIC SUBJECT LINES IN THE BODY OF THE EMAIL THAT YOU SHOULD COPY AND PASTE INTO THE SUBJECT LINE.
Again, whenever you email any documents, please make sure they are the actual size scan of 8 1/2 x 11.
Photos of such documents are NOT acceptable as they do not print out in a proper 8 ½ x 11 size and they are too small and fuzzy to read.
OPPORTUNITY SEARCH
If you have not visited the VOLUNTEER TAB, go to https://ccmt30ct.org/opportunities-all-ages or https://ccmt30ct.org/summer-%26-caroling-slots as these tabs might give you a better idea of some of the opportunities that exist.
Finally, you can also visit the CALENDAR TAB and go to https://ccmt30ct.org/schedule-%26-events-2023-24 .
THANK YOU
Thank you for your attention to these matters.
We look forward to hearing from you soon!
Forms Explained
Student and Adult Intial Application
Student and Adult Liability Waiver and Release
Student and Adult Liability Waiver and Release
- Everyone is required to fill this out.
- All applications must be filled out, signed, and dated properly.
- All applications must be filled out in the format sent to them. Google Docs and photos texted will not be accepted at this time.
- All acceptance and assignments will be granted in CCMT on a first come first serve basis after proper paperwork has been received and everyone agrees we are a good fit for each other.
- No Application, no interview
- Carolers have additional forms whether or not they have a job.
- Carolers who also have a job or other sports or religious activities will be subject to part 2 of the student application.
- NO EXCEPTIONS
Student and Adult Liability Waiver and Release
Student and Adult Liability Waiver and Release
Student and Adult Liability Waiver and Release
- Everyone is required to fill this out.
- Parental Signatures are Required.
- No Liability signed, no interview.
- Liability waiver must be filled out, signed, and dated properly.
- Please pay close attention to the format of the date on page 2.
- All liability waivers must be filled out in the format sent to them. Google Docs or photos texted will not be accepted at this time.
- All acceptance and assignments will be granted in CCMT on a first come first serve basis after proper paperwork has been received and everyone agrees we are a good fit for each other.
- NO EXCEPTIONS
Student and Adult Headshot Photo
Student and Adult Liability Waiver and Release
Student and Adult Medical / Emergency Forms
- Everyone is required to submit a photo prior to acceptance into CCMT.
- Only JPEG Photos will be accepted. No other formats are acceptable at this time.
- No Photo, no interview.
- You will be allowed to change your photo once prior to the Annual Awards Celebration if you so choose to by the deadline of March 30.
- All acceptance and assignments will be granted in CCMT on a first come first serve basis after proper paperwork has been received and everyone agrees we are a good fit for each other.
- NO EXCEPTIONS
Student and Adult Medical / Emergency Forms
Criminal Background Check & Fingerprinting - ADULTS
Student and Adult Medical / Emergency Forms
- Everyone is required to fill this out for in-person volunteering.
- No Medical form, no interview
- Medical/ emergency forms must be filled out, signed, and dated properly.
- All Medical/ emergency forms must be filled out in the format sent to them. Google Docs will not be accepted at this time.
- All acceptance and assignments will be granted in CCMT on a first come first serve basis after proper paperwork has been received and everyone agrees we are a good fit for each other.
- NO EXCEPTIONS
Student and Adult Code of Conduct
Criminal Background Check & Fingerprinting - ADULTS
Criminal Background Check & Fingerprinting - ADULTS
- Everyone must read and sign the Code of Conduct
- No Code of Conduct, no interview.
- Code of conduct must be filled out, signed, and dated properly.
- All code of conduct forms must be filled out in the format sent to them. Google Docs will not be accepted at this time.
- All acceptance and assignments will be granted in CCMT on a first come first serve basis after proper paperwork has been received and everyone agrees we are a good fit for each other.
- NO EXCEPTIONS
Criminal Background Check & Fingerprinting - ADULTS
Criminal Background Check & Fingerprinting - ADULTS
Criminal Background Check & Fingerprinting - ADULTS
- All adults MUST complete a criminal background check and be fingerprinted.
- All adults 18 years of age and older MUST pay the $90.00 fee each year as a tax-deductible donation to CCMT and CCMT will pay the fees.
- Any student who is age 18 and insists on signing their own forms without their parents signatures are welcome to do so. The student will be treated as an adult and also be required to go through this process and make the donation.
- NO EXCEPTIONS
Student / Parent Interviews
Student / Parent Interviews
Student / Parent Interviews
- Zoom interviews will only be granted after all required forms are signed by the student and the custodial parent.
- All students must have a Zoom interview with at least one custodial parent present and it should be the parent who signed the application and forms.
- All Zoom interviews are recorded for safety purposes.
- Students who interview with their parent will get service time for the length of the interview no more than one hour as long as they actually participate in a project and complete it properly.
- Students or parents who change their minds about volunteering will not be granted this time.
Adult Interviews
Student / Parent Interviews
Student / Parent Interviews
- Adult interviews will be handled on a case by case basis.