A recap in my previous blog posts, I have talked about The Service Leader Program, what the program has done for me, how I am involved and how I am trying to get others involved. As you can see through my posts I am highly involved in volunteering and would like to continue to do so.

This blog post is slightly different  from the others I have posted about. This one is about the service project that I would like to start up on campus. Each year, millions of people go hungry and go without food, clothing, hygiene items, etc. In order to help give back to the community, I have been inspired by a crazy, but brilliant idea. After watching the show Extreme Couponing, I think it would be a good idea to start extreme couponing and asking for donations around the community for the coupon inserts. While collecting the coupons, I am going to research in how to become a coupon addict. Once I get enough coupons, I am going to go on one of those extreme shopping sprees that you see in the television show.

Everything that I get from the shopping trip, I am going to donate it to the Path Center. I might even split up the food, one time I might donate it to the Path Center and the next time I might donate it to Back Pack Buddies. 

To start this program, I'll need other service leaders or other students on campus to help collect, organize, and clip coupons. I will also need their help to shop for the food as well. While the project will take quite a bit of work, I think it will be a great success if I can get a few extra volunteers. 

When I learn how to extreme coupon, I want to help others become knowledgeable in the big wide world of coupons. Hopefully I can help teach others how to coupon and use coupons in the best way. I want to share my knowledge to others around me. I am really excited to get this service project going and I cannot wait to see the success of it. 

How Extreme Coupon

Couponing For Beginners Video

In a final recap of my blog, Service Leader has helped me become a better leader on and off campus. Volunteering has made me a less selifsh and better person. It has helped me build up a good foundation for my future and I am going to continue to volunteer as much as I can. I am always on board to try new things and meet new people!

Miscelaneous Service Projects

While being a member of the Service Leader Program, I get the opportunity to become involved with random and miscellaneous service projects. Some of these service projects that I have or other service leaders have been involved with are listed below:

• Writing letters to professors
• Writing letters soldiers overseas
• Writing letters to terminally ill children
• Special Olympics
• Helping elderly shovel snow
• Helping elderly rake leaves
• Donating money and cans to organizations
• Volunteering at Empty Bowls
• Donating Blood
• Setting up and Tearing down the blood drives
• Volunteering in Day of Silence
• Ark in the Park
• Opportunity to go on service trips 
• Read it DC
• Freshmen Service Day
• Strut Your Mutt (Walking Dogs)
• Volunteering with the Autism Program on Campus
• Paint Windows around town for Homecoming
• Camp Libby 
• Compass Student Dances
• Tutoring Children
• Babysitting/Animal Sitting
• Nursing Homes
• Passing out Candy to elderly
• Volunteering at the Path Center
• Donating Food

As you can see there are so many diverse opportunities that are provided on campus. I get emails daily from members of campus and my service leader colleagues. There is always service that can be done and there is always lots of service activities and opportunities. Through the service that I do, I get to meet wonderful people in the community who I build strong relationships with. Service work is a good way to step out in the community and meet new people.Not only do these service opportunities help out the campus, community, environment they also help build character and a resume. I would not be the person I am today without all of the service that I have participated in. Anyone can volunteer, all it takes is an hour or two out of your time and a smile. I take pride in the work I have done and all that I have accomplished here on and off campus.

If there is a service project that you would like to do and it is not on campus, you can always start it. Being apart of the Service Program will help you become one step closer to those projects. In addition to starting a service project, that it is where my next and final blog takes me. 

Below I attached a video from YouTube on how to find volunteer service projects in your area

How To Find Volunteer Opportunities In Your Area

I attached a link in how to begin volunteering and getting involved within your community and a link about reasons to volunteer

How To Begin Volunteering

Reasons for Volunteering

Animal Shelter

One of my favorite organizations that I get to volunteer for periodically is the Fort Defiance County Humane Society. There is nothing better than petting puppies and playing with kittens when I am stressed out!!! When volunteering, I walk dogs and play with them inside their pens and outside in the fenced-in areas. I am more of a cat person, so most of the time you will find me in the cat pens playing with both the kittens and the larger cats.

Aside from playing with the animals, we also can brush the animals, walk the dogs, feed the animals, clean out their pens, was the animals, sweep around the humane society and wash doors and windows. There is only two people that are full time workers at the animal shelter, they have a few part-timers, so when I get the chance I always go volunteer out there. It means a lot to the workers that me and other students from the college come out and are willing to volunteer. The animals are always in need of walking, playing and lots of love and attention.

A lot of people that come in and out of the animal shelter typically play with the puppies and walk the younger dogs and puppies. When we are there, we try to walk and play with the dogs who look like they do not get as much attention as the other dogs. One of my favorite things about volunteering here is playing with the animals and seeing how happy they get when they get attention. One of the best part of the shelters is that it is a non-kill shelter.

One of the hardest parts about working at the animal shelter is that I want to take every animal home. There have been instances where I have almost cried because some of the animals brought into the shelter are treated so terribly or were left abandon to die. By volunteering through there, I see a lot of people who come in and out of the shelter looking to adopt pets. I encourage everyone to go out there and adopt a pet. If you cannot adopt, then at least try your best to go out there and play with the animals.

Below is a video about the Fort Humane Society

Fort Defiance Humane Society Video

Free Clinic

A more recent volunteer program that I had become involved with is called the Defiance Care's Free Clinic. This clinic is all volunteer and provides health care for those who cannot afford so or have to high of a deductible. Over the last three years, we have served over 300 patients. Defiance Care's Free Clinic is on one Saturday a month and we have volunteer doctors who come and take a look at patients for free. Along with volunteer doctors, there is also volunteer social workers who will help assist patients if needed.

I really enjoy volunteering for the Free Clinic. Through volunteering I have helped serve as a receptionist and a greeter. When I'm a receptionist I help hand make charts of people and their age and keep them on file. While I am a greeter, I provide people who come into the clinic with appropriate paperwork and greet them in a friendly manner. At the Free Clinic people have to sign waver forms and we also have to sign forms such as the Hippa form and other agreement forms. To me one of the best parts about helping with the Free Clinic is that I do not see any blood or any testing and I do not shadow any doctors. I am not much of a medical person, but I can handle the reception desk work and communication work.

Outside of helping on the one Saturday a month, I also am in the process of setting up a Facebook page and getting the word of the Free Clinic out. My next plan is to get it broadcasted over the radio. One of my favorite things about volunteering with the Free Clinic is seeing the smiles on people's face because they know someone out there is trying to help them and hasn't given up on them. Along with the Defiance Cares Free Clinic, a recent dental place has opened up with some free dental care! Through a lot of hard work, the organizations have come a long way.

Like many of the other organizations available on campus, there are students who are both Service Leaders and non Service Leaders. Right now the manager of the Free Clinic is a student that is not apart of the Service Leader Program.
Defiance Cares Free Clinic applies to a bunch of different majors. Some of those majors it applies to are Social Work, Nursing, Accounting, Communication, and pretty much any science major. Science Majors are allowed to shadow the doctors. It is a great way to learn some field experience and help build up your resume!

Below are some links about the Defiance Cares Free Clinic
Defiance Cares Free Clinic
Defiance Cares Free Clinic Video

Anti-Bullying

Another one of the many volunteer organizations that I am involved with is the anti-bully program on campus. I recently became involved with this program last winter. Me and a group of other students put together presentations and present at schools about the effects of bullying and how bullying is never okay. Unlike many of the others in the group, I only got to present at a couple of schools and teaching children about anti-bullying. I have given presentations from different age groups ranging from kindergarteners all the way up to fifth graders.

Bullying Image

This upcoming year, the lead of the Anti-Bullying program on campus and I are going to come up with a goal and see how many presentations we can give in one year. I want to present at least 15 times throughout the school year. This year, we want to travel to a few different schools this year present to a diverse age group of students. I am really looking forward to presenting at other schools this year and expanding our bullying group.

I enjoy volunteering my time at the schools and presenting on the effects of bullying. Bullying is a serious topic that needs addressed, especially in today's society. Bullying has become an everyday thing and it is something that should not be common. Students need to be aware the harmful effects of bullying and how it effects others. I have found that students enjoy college students presenting on bullying versus older adults. Students see us as role models and almost an older sibling versus an adult that they find unrelatable and

Below is an anti-bullying video that my group and I had found resourceful as we had been putting together a video for a presentation to elementary students. This video below is a good way to insight that bullying can be stopped and it does not take a hero to end bullying. All it needs is for another person to take a stand against bullying.

Superhero- Anti Bullying

Recylcing

Another organization that I happened to become apart of was the College's recycling program. Not only is the recycling program new, started in 2011, it is a non-profit organization and it is a student run program. Every Sunday, I traveled from dorm building to dorm building collecting recyclables. One of the perks about our school is that every dorm room has a recycling bag that they can fill up with recyclables and place outside their door on Sundays. Instead of buying new bags each year, the bags are recycled and reused every year. Once of the policies about on campus recycling is that no student can get in trouble for what they have in their recycling bag. This policy was set up in order to encourage more students to recycle even if they have alcohol bottles. Every week, we usually got the typical recyclables that you would find in anyone's recycling bin. Our recyclables ranged from cans, papers, shampoo bottles, glass bottles, cardboard boxes, cans, and anything that was rated under a 6 at the bottom of a can or bottle. Throughout my first year of recycling, the recycling team had recycled over hundreds of bottles and crushed hundreds of cans.

In order to keep track of what we recycled, we would take off the bottle caps and pull off of the pop can tabs to try and keep track of a number of what we have recycled. In profit of the aluminum cans, the money would go towards another volunteer program on campus known as Backpack Buddies. Backpack Buddies is an organization that stuffs bags full of food and delivers food to children whose only real chance of eating is at school. Backpack buddies is an organization that I have not helped volunteer with yet, but it is on my goal to help volunteer.

The Recycling program on campus is a nice way to keep the campus clean and help protect the environment. The recycling program is a great program to be involved in, especially for. Through the recycling program, everyone has a chance to become involved. Not everyone has to collect the recyclables but they can help cut down on the costs of trash and help save the environment by recycling their products and bottles. Recycling in college sets up students with a good foundation for the future when they move out and have their own homes. Hopefully through this program, the college students on this campus will recycle in their future too.

 Recycling Image

Tunnel of Oppression

Another one of the service projects I am involved in was Tunnel of Oppression. It was my first year and I was not familiar with Tunnel of Oppression as I had been with Dance Marathon. It was a whole new concept to me. My college does the tunnel every two years and other colleges and universities do and create the tunnel every year. Tunnel of Oppression is spreading throughout colleges and universities and is becoming more common.

What is Tunnel of Oppression? Tunnel of Oppression is a tunnel that raises awareness of taboo issues in society such as depression, different types of abuses, anxiety, food disorders, human trafficking, racial issues, religious issues, LGBTQ, and many other issues that fall into those categories. The tunnel is made up of piping and sheets with posters with images and words written on them. The tunnel contains powerful messages that are supposed to strike anyone that walks through it.

I remember the head of the Service Leader asking anyone if they wanted to be a team lead. I raised my hand and I became one of the leaders of the construction committee. This was the first service project that I helped take charge and made sure my part for it was done. I had to help create the posters, design the tunnel, prepare my group and do research on the project.

This service project took a lot of effort but it was well worth it when it was done. The tunnel had reached out and made a difference to many on campus. It was an approach to get people to understand that abuse and bullying is never okay. Everyone has their own differences and we need to see that more in society.

Below are some of the images from the construction of the tunnel that had been taken when we were putting it together.

Above are images from the tunnel that we placed in there. Throughout the tunnel, there are skits in the corner to act out some of the skits. One of the skits I became involved in and acted like an abused child while the alcoholic parent had abused me. After the tunnel, it was amazing to see how many people had different outlooks on some of the topics and how many people were shocked in the statistics and horrors of some of the numbers mentioned. After the tunnel, we had a social worker at the end to talk about what the tunnel is and how it effected everyone. Our objective of the tunnel is to motivate people and make them understand that everyone is different. We try to help others understand that there are underlying issues that occur everyday that keep getting ignored and these issues need to be addressed. 

Below is a video of what the tunnel is like:

Tunnel of Oppression

Dance Marathon

Rewind to my freshmen year, my first Service Project I had become involved with was Dance Marathon. At the time I vaguely knew what Dance Marathon was from seeing it on the news and hearing about it from the upper classmen and older Service Leaders. For those who are not aware, Dance Marathon is a non-profit organization that raises money for terminally ill children.

Dance Marathon differs from each college by several factors. Larger colleges can typically raise larger amounts of money than smaller schools. Some schools dance and stand for 24 hours, some stand for 12 hours, and some do it for 8, all depending on the school. 

While I was involved in Dance Marathon, I raised awareness to others about what Dance Marathon is and encouraged students, faculty and staff to become involved within the organization. While apart of Dance Marathon, we fun raised through bake sales, participated in dorm storms, collected money at football games, got local businesses to donate money, Mr. DC and we sent letters home to friends and family to help support our cause.

I participated in my first Dance Marathon back in November of 2012, my first year of college. It was one of the most incredible moments that I have experienced here on campus. I got to see all of mine and the other members and participants of Dance Marathon's work pay off. Some of the children that our Dance Marathon money helped attended our Dance Marathon. Some of the children had minor diseases and some of them had overcome cancer. It was incredible to see all of the children that we were able to helping smiling and laughing as they had a good time. It was truly special to see those children and their families come to support us as we have supported them. 

During my Dance Marathon, we played games, ate food, stood for 8 hours and danced the night away. We were standing for the children and families that couldn't. Last fall I was not able to participate in the Dance Marathon because I was in Florida for an internship, however I cannot wait to participate again this year! I cannot wait to make a difference in another person's live. 

As a member of Dance Marathon this year, I cannot wait to start fundraising again and helping out with recruiting new members on campus to take part in this service project. Below I attached a video from Dance Marathon that took place last year, the year that I wasn't able to participate in because of my internship. This video will provide you more insight about what we do and what Dance Marathon does and stands for. 

Dance Marathon 2013

Service Leader Retreat

Before I go in depth about my service projects, I am going to get in depth about the service retreats. Each year, around July there is service retreats for the incoming freshmen. Incoming freshmen come to campus for about three days and get to know the campus and become familiar with what the retreat is and what the Service Leaders on campus actually do.

Before I came to college, I attended my Service Leader Retreat. It was nice to know some familiar faces when I moved on campus and I had a good look into what the next four years of college had in store for me. This summer I got to provide the same insight to freshmen as I had received. We had two different groups of freshmen come in this summer for two different retreats.

I took time off work to be here for the first group of freshmen. When the freshmen got here, we helped them settle in and introduce ourselves. From then we had them participate in team bonding games and leadership building games. One of the activities we did was the human knot. As an older Service Leader Member, we agreed that only the incoming freshmen could talk and we had to keep quiet. My group took about an hour to do the human knot. It took awhile, but it was the very first step for the incoming freshmen to become leaders and try something on their own with new peers.

Throughout the retreat, we did a leadership scavenger hunt and we also did service activities. One of the service projects that we had done was repaint a building and clean up a building called Compass. I will discuss what Compass exactly is in a later blog. Aside from the not so fun service project, me and a few other service leadership went to a local library and played water games with children. This was one of the fun service projects we introduced to the incoming freshmen.

One of the games we played was similar to hot potato. All of the service leaders and children sat in a circle and when the music stopped, whoever had the cup of water got to determine who the water got dumped on.

Here is an image of me dumping water on one of the incoming freshmen. 

Playing and interacting with children is always a fun service project. As Service Leaders we get to become involved within the community, being positive role models and having fun doing so. On my next blog I am going to talk about the first service project I had gotten involved with. 

Introduction to Service Leader

Service, Volunteering, Service, and Volunteering...

Community Service Image

Here at my campus, I have become highly involved within volunteering on and off campus by doing service projects. As I am approaching my junior year, it is my goal to become more involved with the service leader program than I have been the past two years. There is a requirement that I must meet 150 service hours in order to receive my scholarship. Not only do I want to complete those 150 service hours, this year I want to reach past 400 service hours. My freshmen year I had completed around 250 service hours. This past year when I was a sophomore I did not complete near as many since I was gone a semester for my internship. 

Before college, I was not much of a volunteer. Not because I didn't want to volunteer, I just never really had the opportunities to step out and and volunteer in my community. Sure I donated blood, worked blood drives, raked leaves and shoveled snow every now and then, but it was nothing compared to what I have done here at the college and what I am involved in. 

During the school year, I spend a lot of my time at college participating in the Service Leader Program and completing projects and volunteering my time to multiple organizations. In my later blogs I will talk about my service projects and what organizations I am involved with and what . The Service Leaders to me are like one big family. I know I can go to this group for ideas, advice, problems, etc., I know they will be there for me and they will have good insight. As leaders of this campus, they will not steer me in the wrong direction. 

One of the biggest questions I get asked here on campus is what does service mean to mean me... Service to me, means to take your time to help someone else in need and make sure that they are taken care of before myself. I don't volunteer for the status of helping someone else or making myself look good, I volunteer because it's a great feeling knowing that I can help someone else out besides myself. 

I had asked two of my friends who are involved in the Service Leader Program and asked them what service had meant to them. 

Suzie: "Taking the time to put someone else's needs before your own"

Katie: "Helping someone less fortunate then myself. Making a positive impact on another's life"

As a Service Leader, we volunteer our times to help people of all ages, animals, and help the environment around us. Not only do we volunteer we attend meetings and plan on what other service projects we can do and how we can help better those around us. Service Leaders has become a positive impact in my life and I want to give back to others what the world has given to me. In my next blogs I am going to introduce some of the service projects I do, the projects I want to get involved in and the projects I want to start up.