Olivia Love
Staff Writer
A group of students from a public relations class taught by Karen Hartman has been working closely with the Idaho Department of Labor’s Volunteer to Career Program over the last semester to raise awareness about the benefits of volunteering. To do this, they will be co-hosting a Service Saturday on April 16.
“The Volunteer to Career people reached out to me and they’ve also reached out to the University of Idaho and Boise State,” Hartman said.
All three universities are working to create projects that advocate undergraduate volunteering. The class at ISU was given the assignment of working with a professional organization in the community and creating a campaign from beginning to end.
Hartman explained the details of the project.
“They do research, they survey and then they create a campaign based on the research they’ve found as well as the objectives of the professional organization and do a public relations campaign on their behalf.”
The emphasis on the campaign partnered with the Idaho Department of Labor is to show students the benefits of volunteering while they are an undergraduate. In order to do this, the students have partnered with SAB to coordinate a Service Saturday where there will be opportunities to win prizes.
“One part of the class is that it is the responsibility of the students to make those connections and so the group has done a wonderful job finding the connections and being proactive on their own,” Hartman said.
The students are trying to give everyone an opportunity to come and volunteer for a couple hours on a Saturday which is usually a day where most people do not have a lot going on.
“Time, effort and energy. As students, we’re already really busy and especially juniors and seniors. We have graduation and careers on our mind,” said Ashley Lathen, who is a student participating in the project. “So if you throw volunteering on top of that, it kind of makes us feel really pressured.”
This is why the group of students opted to work their campaign into something that took place on the weekend. Students just have to show up for a few hours to volunteer which makes it a really low stress and community centered environment.
“Volunteering is essential on a number of levels. First off, the notion of giving back to a community is so important to making a community rich and full and the best it can be for everyone involved,” Hartman said. “It’s an opportunity to get some skills that can help you outside of the classroom experience as an undergraduate.”
Besides giving back to the community, there are many opportunities to build skills that can be used on a resume. It is important to be able to recognize these skills and present them in a way that it adds an edge to a job application.
“The Idaho Department of Labor has a statistic that is, I think, that you have a 27 percent more likelihood of getting a better career after you graduate,” Lathen said.
A raffle will be held in which each participating group will earn raffle tickets based on the number of people per hour they bring. For example, if a sorority brought five girls and stayed for two hours, they would receive ten entries into the raffle. Separate from this, there will be a $200 prize for whoever brings the most people.
Volunteers are asked to meet in the Bengal Cafe at 8:30am Saturday, April 16.
