volunteer work – The Hilltop Monitor

Featured Club: Nonprofit Leadership Association

Kyler Schardein — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 14:12:12 +0000

The Nonprofit Leadership Association (NLA) is a service-oriented on-campus club at William Jewell College with the purpose of “providing its members with cultural, social, and educational co-curricular opportunities with the intent of enriching the students’ lives and professional development in the field of Nonprofit Leadership,” as stated by the club’s president, junior nonprofit leadership, communication and Applied Critical Thought and Inquiry major, Mikaela Papageorgiou.

“[The goals of NLA are] to enrich the community we are in through service and to act as an organization that educates individuals about the nonprofit field,” said Papageorgiou. “[NLA] provides unique service opportunities to students of William Jewell College, while also discussing how to better the community around us.”

NLA is led by an executive board composed of President Papageorgiou, Vice President Haley Call and Treasurer Kylee Newton. The group currently has a core group of about ten students whose regular meetings are open to anyone interested in joining NLA. They meet Tuesdays from 11:15-12:05 p.m. at the Pryor House.

The organization helps promote community engagement and service on the Hill and to better connect students who are interested in volunteering to groups that could use support in the Kansas City and Liberty communities.

Papageorgiou invites all Jewell students to join NLA, noting that it is a great opportunity to make new friends on the Hill and connect with the broader Liberty and Kansas City communities.

NLA often works with service and nonprofit organizations in the Liberty and Kansas City communities, and Papageorgiou’s favorite part of the NLA experience is working with the small nonprofits.

“Being able to connect through service and volunteering is such an incredible experience already, but when it is such a small nonprofit you get to see the impact volunteers can make,” Papageorgiou said.

Alongside serving with other organizations, NLA sometimes hosts events of their own. During the fall semester, NLA hosted a trivia fundraiser at Rock and Run Brewery in Liberty with all proceeds going to benefit the nonprofit Warrior’s Best Friend. A group dedicated to providing service dogs to veterans suffering from PTSD and TBI.

Jewell students and faculty collaborate to serve Kansas City elementary school

Sofia Arthurs-Schoppe — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 13:00:47 +0000

In a project ongoing since Jan. 2015, William Jewell College faculty and students have been collaborating to provide an aquaponics and STEM education program at the Primitivo Garcia Elementary school in Kansas City.

Jewell students have been volunteering at Primitivo Garcia since 2014 and travel to the school weekly to read to the students. Incorporating a STEM component into this collaboration began in Jan. 2015.

This collaboration has resulted in the construction of an aquaponics lab at Primitivo Garcia, the development of lesson plans for the 4th and 5th grade students and a comprehensive strategic plan for the school.

The outreach initiative has been coordinated by Dr. Lori Wetmore, director of the Village Partners Project and chemistry professor at Jewell, who explained that one of the project’s strengths has been bringing together different departments at the College.

“The goal of the grant was to create an interdisciplinary, service learning project,” said Wetmore. “I think what makes this project cool is that it was really Jewell student designed.”

To date, students and faculty from the biology, business administration, education and physics departments have been involved in developing the project’s framework.

Students from the Meeting Facilitation and Strategic Planning class offered in the spring of 2016, as well as the Financial Development for Nonprofit Organizations and Marketing Principles classes, both offered in fall of 2017, were involved in the strategic planning stages and members of the Association of Chemistry Students, SUSTAIN and Tribeta have come together to teach the children.

Emily Dema, President of Tribeta and senior Oxbridge: Molecular Biology and Applied Critical Thought and Inquiry (ACT-In) major, has been involved in this project from the beginning and is excited to see people’s hard work pay off this year.

Catherine Dema, Emily Dema and Sam Fulte are all involved in starting these new programs at Primitivo Garcia.

“It’s exciting to see that previous work come to fruition this year. My hope is to provide an opportunity for these kids to get involved in and excited about science,” said Emily Dema. “Maybe not all of them will latch on to science, but I hope we will be able to spark an interest in a few of them. Even just exposing them to the career path is key.”

Around April of 2017, Lydia Sturges, senior elementary education and ACT-In major, was brought onto the project team to work with the teachers at Primitivo Garcia and create lesson plans teaching students to use the aquaponics system.

Sturges explained that she was very interested in writing the lesson plans and training the teachers to implement them but hasn’t been involved with the project much since.

“Right after the system got up and running at Primitivo Garcia, I went down and did a teacher training with the two main teachers who would be using the aquaponics lesson plans that I had created,” said Sturges. “I’ve made myself available to that team of teachers if they had questions, but it was kind of a weird place to be in. I was (and still am) a preservice teacher who was telling veteran teachers what they should be doing and how to do it.”

Sturges hopes that these lessons will inspire the students at Primitivo Garcia to pursue science later in life.

“I hoped that these plans would instill a love of learning and science with these kiddos. A lot of times kids get a preconceived notion about their own abilities. They think they’re stuck right where they’re at and they can’t go any further or be any ‘smarter,’” said Sturges. “I wanted kids to see that there are opportunities (particularly in science for this project) that they might have first dismissed because they didn’t think they were ‘good enough.’”

Primitivo Garcia is a diverse public school and Wetmore hopes that empowering students at this school will facilitate greater diversity within the field of science in Kansas City.

“The more that we can get students of color interested in science – especially young girls because there is even less representation in that demographic – the greater the chances are that you’re going to get more representation in the sciences,” said Wetmore.

Catherine Dema, sophomore Oxbridge: History of Ideas and physics major, is the SUSTAIN representative involved in this project and believes that this outreach will broaden the students’ perspectives about a variety of topics.

“STEM education goes hand-in-hand with sustainability education, especially about something like the aquaponics system. It’s really important for kids to learn not just about science, but also about how our (people’s) interactions with the planet affect us, plants and animals,” said Catherine Dema.

The first of these sessions was held on Sept. 18 and Sam Fulte, senior biochemistry major and Vice President of Tribeta, said that the Primitivo Garcia students were excited about the opportunity.

“It was exciting for us to see how excited the kids were about everything,” said Fulte. “Even some of the kids who have already been in the aquaponics lab were really excited.”

The construction of the aquaponics lab was funded by a $4,000 Kauffman Innovation Grant, a $1,000 Missouri Campus Compact Institution Mini-Grant and Jewell’s Village Partners Project.

Jewell volunteers will be returning to Primitivo Garcia on Oct. 9 and any students interested in being involved in the project – now or in the future – should contact Wetmore.

Photos courtesy of Sofia Arthurs-Schoppe.

Sophomore students encourage midterm voting through volunteer work

Erin Melton — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 16:00:35 +0000

Brett Stone and Caitlin Troutman, sophomores, volunteered for local campaigns during the midterm season.

Prior to the Nov. 4 midterm elections, William Jewell’s political communication students were required to place themselves in the midst of the campaign process. Class members, Caitlin Troutman and Brett Stone, sophomores, took part by volunteering for a call center and a Democratic canvassing campaign, respectively.

Troutman, an Oxbridge literature and theory and political science double major, worked for Communities Creating Opportunity (CCO). She was informed of this opportunity by the Political Communication, Kevin Garner, who composed a list of organizations and causes from which students could choose.

“I didn’t really want to work for a specific campaign. I just wanted to work more generally and tell people why it was important to vote,” Troutman said.

Troutman’s responsibilities for CCO included calling Missouri residents with past tendencies to vote in presidential but not midterm elections, and explaining the importance of voting in midterm elections.

Despite the challenges and uncomfortable situations she faced, including unreceptive and sometimes hostile responses to her calls, Troutman enjoyed her time with CCO.

“I got to meet a lot of cool people in the Liberty community, specifically, who care about important things, and that’s always refreshing,” Troutman said.

Troutmans’s personal ideas about the importance of voting led her to choose this kind of organization.

“Voting in the midterms is so important because it’s more of a direct vote. It’s how the opinions of people are made known to our representatives,” Troutman said. “Our age group is really underrepresented, but if we don’t vote, our opinions and positions can’t be made known.”

Brett Stone, English and political science major, canvassed in Overland Park, Ks. for Paul Davis, a Democrat running for governor. Both the candidate’s accessibility and positions on issues important to Stone guided him to this choice for his campaign participation.

Brett’s favorite part of his experience was a specific woman to whom he spoke, who he describes as friendly and enthusiastic for both the candidate and the election in general.

“It was really neat to meet somebody else who is as interested in politics as I am,” Stone said.

Contrary to this particualar voter’s warm receptions, Stone faced uncomfortable interactions with those who were wary of him or simply were not interested in what he had to say. He understood this, though, as being a natural, skeptical reaction toward anyone who approaches their doors.

However, Stone focused on representation with regard to important issues as a big incentive to participate in the midterm process.

“If you don’t vote, then whoever is elected won’t completely represent the electorate,” Stone said.

Troutman and Stone gave similar advice to those students who will take the political communication course, and participate in these kinds of activities in the future. Their emphasis was on setting aside enough time to find and participate in an election-focused activity the student truly cares about, reducing the chance of stressing over the required hours for the project. They both urge their peers to volunteer for a candidate, cause or campaign that truly speaks to them.

“If you’re looking for ways to get involved in the opportunity, do something you’re invested in, something you care about,” Troutman said.