Any state bordering Louisiana seems to celebrate Mardi Gras--so for my volunteer recognition lunch we did a Mardi Gras theme. This is fabulously inexpensive--beads, coins and masks are really cheap decorations that can be bought in bulk on-line. I made centerpieces by planting pansys (which are conveniently Mardi Gras colored) in hand-painted green and purple terra cotta pots (which took me only one afternoon to do) and then displaying coins and masks on the tables. Each volunteer got beads as they walked in the door and we had zydeco music playing in the background. The volunteers loved it! We "raffled" off the centerpieces to a person at each table by asking an organization-related trivia question to each group. The person with the closest answer took home the planter. This helped the volunteers learn about our nation-wide program as well as how important their service is to our organization. For gifts, I took iron-on transfers and placed a volunteer related design on tote bags bought in bulk inexpensively. We filled these bags with donated goodies from area merchants (e.g. note pads from a printing company, pens and keychains from an insurance company and sweets donated by a distributor). Hand-making things really doesn't take that much time and can save you tons of money. I also think the volunteers were touched by the hard work put in to recognizing them.