We just held a reading night at our school. It was pretty easy, and pretty successful. The one thing I would really do different is - instead of having storytellers in corners of the room, I would have one audience, one stage, and one storyteller at a time. That way, it's a lot easier to pay attention to the story. You can hear the person, and they don't get drowned out by a louder storyteller. You also don't have to worry about one group getting finished earlier and distracting the others. The storyteller who is up gets all the attention. They only have to read their story once, with a microphone. Parents, grandparents, the principal, or a favorite teacher might be good storytellers too! Keep it simple for your own sake, until you can build up your volunteers again. Have a book give away after the stories are done. Let people read with their kids independently - set out mats or chairs to sit and read. Hand out refreshments on the way out. Good luck. I hope this helps!

I really like Scottmom's idea of contacting parents that the teachers recommend. That's how our PTO got started. I asked the teachers at a faculty meeting to pleae give me a list of parents that have offered to help out in the classroom or that they felt would be an asset to PTO. Then I sent out a letter on stationary that said something about that person being recommended as a wonderful potential PTO member and how coming to our meeting would make a huge difference for our children. That's it, no committments to anything other than the meeting. At the meeting is when I told them of the activities planned and what we'd need help with.

Another idea you might try is to give any member a restaurant gift certificate if they bring a friend to the meeting(or at least put their name in a drawing for it) to be given at that meeting. Many restaurants will give donations, even if you're not tax exempt, if it's for small denominations.

For help right away, you can always send home a "please help" with the times needed for your event. And if your school has a website, ask if your PTO event can be on the homepage with either a link to you or your phone number for those that can help. Make sure you explain the benefit of keeping this activity/event, especially if it's a fundraiser, or what the loss of it would mean to your school in everything you send out.

We've gotten help from local JRROTC, HS seniors, 8th graders getting confirmed, college students looking for a volunteer activity to put on scholarship information, local tv anchors, and local politicans. I don't know how involved your staff is, but ours seem to willingly help with math and reading nights.
I know you're stressed out but you may want to try to get out there and meet some more parents or make a few phone calls to parents teachers recommend to see if they are interested. We have no more than 5 parents involved in PTO or willing to come to meetings at a time and we are able to get all kinds of stuff done. As your group has changed, your way of thinking and planning might need to, also. This doens't have to mean cancelling events but changing how they are done to maximize your volunteers. I always tell people our carnival could be bigger if we could just get more people willing to help.

Threeboysmom's got it, call your local high school. I get many volunteers from there, also call your "old" volunteers, their kids might love to come back to their "old school" and read. (a big ego boost for them also)As for needing new parents, just start calling. Most people won't say no if they are asked. Meet new parents at pick up time, have a set time and place for them to work (give them a choice of books to read) and ask them for idea's, people are more willing to help knowing that they are doing THEIR idea, reading THEIR favorite book etc.
good luck

Some other resources for readers would be a local theatre group, the high school debate team, key club, (just about any club in the HS needs community service hours) and also contact your local public library. They might know local authors or others who would be good readers. Good luck!!

Wow, sounds like you're in a tough spot and I'm sorry that your volunteers are bailing on you. As for reading night, I assume you have ordered the Reading Night material from this site. (if not you should)
I like activities so that it fills the evening and makes it feel more worthwhile. While serving punch and cookies I would have a couple of things the kids could do, like making bookmarks and make up your own silly story or "Mad Libs" type of things. Also you could do a book swap and a book walk (like a cake walk) only with laminated book jackets for the spots and pencils and bookmarks for prizes. Good luck to you!