The GIVE Center honors top 09-10 student volunteers

The GIVE Center recently announced its top 30 volunteers at GCSU from May 1, 2009 to April 1, 2010.

The top volunteer with 834 hours is senior English major Belinda Dennis. She works a lot with The GIVE Center and organized their alternative spring break, Service by the Sea.

“For me, volunteering here at GCSU has not been about an accumulation of hours nor any kind of recognition. Service to others is my duty and my great privilege,” Dennis said.

Others on the list included Katie Morgan, junior and psychology major, who volunteered 153 hours this year.

The main organization that Morgan volunteers with is called Young Life, which is not affiliated with GCSU. It is a Christian organization that visits GMC and other high schools and tries to build relationships with the students in order to promote Christianity.

“We try to earn the right to be heard by hanging out with the students and going to their games and performances,” Morgan said.

Another top volunteer on the list is mass communication major and senior Heather Raines. She volunteered 240 hours this past school year.

Raines also volunteers with Young Life which she says takes up a lot of time because it involves a lot of planning.

“I also volunteered with Baldwin Track Club which is a little kid track. I loved the little kids they were so cute,” Raines said.

Raines said she was not quite an assistant coach, but she helped a lot with the meets and the workouts beforehand.

Julia Borland, sophomore exercise science major, is also on the list. She works with Circle K, which is a volunteer club at GCSU, and is their current president. Borland is also the service leader for Bell Hall.

Kendall Stiles director of The GIVE Center, said that this list would be “a positive way to recognize our students who had gone through our official community certified volunteer orientation and training.”

Stiles wanted to recognize volunteers that had volunteered over 150 hours from last May to this month instead of just recognizing the top volunteers for April as traditionally done.

Student staff worker for the Give Center Jaquie Beute, psychology major and senior, has volunteered a lot here at GCSU through the center. She does Relay for Life and the Purple Glove Dance.

“Overall the number of volunteers have gone up this year,” Beute said.

According to Stiles they have had 2,201 students perform over 61,000 hours as compared to last year’s 1,966 volunteers.

“The GIVE Center’s most popular events are Relay for Life, Dance Marathon, and Sequins and Smiles,” Stiles said.

Posted by Danielle Paluga on Apr 16 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry