Volunteers for July’s DNC far exceed expectations

Philadelphia’s host committee for the2016 Democratic National Convention announced Tuesday that it underestimated the number of volunteers it would draw to help out at the convention this year by more than 6,000 people.

More than two months before the start of the convention, more than 16,000 individuals from the Delaware Valley and beyond have come forward to lend a hand at this year’s biggest Democratic event, which is being held in July at the Wells Fargo Center and at auxiliary locations throughout the city.

In mid-April, when the DNC host committee staff announced it was seeking requests for proposals for a security firm to provide vetting services for volunteers, they were anticipating about 10,000 people would apply.

On Tuesday, DNC host committee Communlications Director Anna Adams-Sarthou said that they will be announcing the vetting firm in the next week or so, and that the DNC does not anticipate any snags as far as selecting volunteers because of the overflow.

“We have so many registered to our portal and will be creating a waitlist for additional interested volunteers after the portal reaches capacity,” Adams-Sarthou wrote in an e-mail.

“So we feel very good about having plenty of good volunteers to fulfill all needed roles and shifts.”

“The fact that we have exceeded our volunteer recruitment goal by such a wide margin shows that residents from across the city, region and country are excited about this event and want to be a part of it. We are very grateful for their interest in helping us host the convention,”Kevin Washo, executive director of the Philadelphia 2016 Host Committee, said in a news release.

The host committee also announced that there are 1,000 spaces remaining on its volunteer registration portal. The DNC takes places July 25 through 28.