What makes SHRM-Atlanta special is our volunteers.
Our chapter has been blessed with over 120 volunteers who selflessly give their time and treasure to help SHRM-Atlanta to be the primary resource that the metro-Atlanta HR community goes to for professional development and networking.
Being a SHRM-Atlanta volunteer helps to enhance your membership benefits because you get the opportunity to foster community and learn from some of the smartest HR minds in the area.
One additional benefit with volunteering is that you get great opportunities to develop and enhance your leadership skills through volunteering. SHRM-Atlanta offers leadership roles that provide real-world experience managing and leading teams. The teamwork and leadership skills developed by participating on a committee – or leading one – will help you hone the skills employers’ value in their employees.
Interested? Why don’t you check out our information about volunteering by clicking here.
Every year we have a Volunteer Appreciation event where we all come together to celebrate excellence in human resources as a community by awarding our Exemplary Awards for our volunteers who have gone above and beyond.
Here’s the list of our well deserving Exemplary Awards winners for 2020:
Stephanie Cantillo – Chair, New Member Onboarding
Stephanie has been a great leader of our new member onboarding committee for several years. In April, she quicky adapted the new member orientation to a virtual format without losing any of the warmth and information that has been the cornerstone of our onboarding events. This interaction has allowed the new/prospective members to feel part of the SHRM-Atlanta Community from the beginning
Keriann Ferguson – Chair, Junior Achievement
Kerriann has served as the Chair, Junior Achievement since February 2018. JA has been a consistent SHRM-Atlanta partner and with Kerriann’s leadership the JA family has come to rely on our partnership to make a BIG impact on the middle schoolers in the Atlanta metro area.
Angela Hall – Workforce Readiness Committee
Angela has been a long-time SHRM-Atlanta member and wanted to serve in a larger capacity in 2020. At the start of the year, SHRM-Atlanta had the opportunity to partner with Spring Educational Services at the Istanbul Cultural Center of Georgia. Angela jumped right in and helped make the event was a great success as SHRM-Atlanta provided resume assistance to 40+ high school and college students. Angie co-facilitated the LinkedIn branding workshop – which was open to both the students and SHRM-Atlanta volunteers
Stephanie Mullison – Chair, Legal & Legislative Programs
Stephanie has played a key role in helping to make our Legal Summit a big success. In 2020, Stephanie and her team re-imagined the event to a virtual format and still delivered compelling and relevant legal content that attracted a large audience.
Patricia Kellner – Chair, Featured Events
Patricia has played a vital role in helping to review and select the content for all of our SHRM-Atlanta events. She has provided wise counsel to Heather Dufault on building relevant topics and speakers that have been warmly received by our members.
Xavier Cugnon – SHRM Certification Prep Instructor
Xavier embodies everything that you would expect in a volunteer leader. His work with the certification prep classes has helped countless members in their professional development. Xavier has also played an active and important role in our Accomplished Leaders Exchange.
Carol Longmore – Chair, Volunteer Recruiting
Carol, a long-time volunteer of SHRM-Atlanta, has helped SHRM-Atlanta rethink our recruiting processes on how to best identify and place volunteers in open leadership and committee roles. With a deep HR background and her superpower of being extremely process-oriented, Carol was able to both restructure her committee to provide each vertical one-on-one support, as well as formally document the preferred VLT recruiting process.
Linda DeMaris – Chair, Mentoring Programs
Linda created and grown the SHRM-Atlanta Mentoring Program to be one of the highlights of our chapter. Despite the pandemic forcing everyone to virtual, Linda was able to add an additional cohort in 2020 and create re-engineer the mentor-mentee matching events to a virtual format.
Lenna Turner – Chair, Scholarships and Fundraising
Under Lenna’s leadership, the SHRM-Atlanta Scholarship Program has helped many deserving members in their professional development. The new Pay It Forward program that Leena and her team has developed allows individuals to make donations specifically to help other members attend an event or pay for membership.
As we close out the crazy year that was 2020, I hope all of you got to spend time with your family, friends, and loved ones. That was definitely a year that none of us will forget.
But I believe that 2021 is going to be equally as memorable as a time where we all saw hope return and meaningful changes that will help everyone.
By: Pat Lynch, 2021 SHRM-Atlanta President
