The Wake County school system has changed the way it will handle new requests for volunteers the rest of the school year.

Instead of reopening the volunteer registration system for a week in December and a week in the spring, principals have been told they can register volunteers on Mondays through April 25. The three exceptions are Dec. 20, Dec. 27 and Jan. 17.

You'll need to ask the principal, or the person's designated representative, to sign up if you haven't yet done so yet. At this point, 35,392 people have registered to be volunteers this school year.

Wake County schools are scrambling to get volunteers registered before the district shuts down its volunteer registration system today.

As noted in today's article, the system will go down at 5 p.m. It will reopen for a week in early December and a week in late March or early April.

If you don't register by today or during those two weeks later in the school year, principals have been directed to only submit volunteer applications "that are absolutely necessary."

More than 600 employees with Talecris Biotherapeutics spent Friday and today volunteering at 26 nonprofit agencies, mostly across Johnston County.

The "Talecris Cares" event is timed to happen as the company's massive drug-manufacturing plant in Clayton halts production for maintenance and upgrades. About 1,500 workers at the factory make medicines from blood plasma.

The plant will be shut down for 4 to 6 weeks, and employees will spend much of that time doing training. The volunteer effort originated out of the company's interest in using part of the factory's down time about every 18 months to give back to the community.

This year, workers volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Johnston County Animal Shelter and Howell Woods environmental learning center in Four Oaks. A group of workers also visited Ft. Bragg to volunteer at two elementary schools on the base and help prepare barracks for the return of 240 soldiers from Iraq.

The company will spend $20 million to maintain and upgrade its Clayton plant during the next few weeks.

Talk about an incentive.

The N.C. Department of Transportation
is asking churches, schools, businesses and other groups to take to the
streets from Sept. 20 to Oct. 4 to clean up trash. But don't join
Litter Sweep for the good-natured volunteerism alone.

Because the person with the most unusual road-side trash find could win $250! (This reminds me of a package Matthew Eisley did in 2006 about N.C.'s trashy roadways. That series showed everything from couches to full commodes end up on roadsides.)

Here's what to do:

• Organize a volunteer group.
• Choose a state road (one in your neighborhood, on your commute, etc.)