The GIVE Center finds new home

Beginning as a cluster of handwritten suggestions confined to a little red basket, The GIVE Center has expanded to include more than 90 service programs.

On Feb. 10, The Center  will unveil its new space in the Maxwell Student Union.

The GIVE Center is known as the volunteerism hub for students, connecting them to campus and community service projects.  Although The GIVE Center will lose square footage with the move from Ennis Hall, it will gain the ability to communicate more effectively with its service organizations in a modernized setting,  transforming their approaches to volunteerism.

Paul Sedor, assistant director of The GIVE Center, emphasized the importance of the Center becoming a more professional environment and how the move will help reach this goal.

“We were limited by what we could do in the other space, but here, with the technology, we will be able to help our students use this in their programs,” Sedor said. “We really want to kind of bring the service efforts into modern times.”

As the new site for the Department of Art, Ennis Hall had always been intended as a temporary location for The GIVE Center. Now, almost two decades later, the Center finally has a permanent place

to call home. Renovations began in the fall and some of the most significant modifications to the new space are the project work room and the conference rooms.

According to Sedor, Ennis Hall did not provide a place for service organizations to meet and discuss nor create their “propaganda” to advertise various events. There will even be a formal conference room equipped with a web conferencing system for “webinars,” or Internet meetings, which will allow service members at different locales to check in as well as interact with other organizations and volunteer leaders who were previously inaccessible.

The GIVE Center has also received a number of new computers for service leader training and will be using a digital messaging system, similar to Bobcat Vision, to display upcoming events and program information on a flat screen television posted outside the Center. Michael Morris, sophomore history major and student staff member at The GIVE Center views these modifications as way to lessen a number of the organizational issues that often hindered the center’s progress.

“I just think things are going to move a lot more smooth,” Michael Morris said. “As soon as a volunteer comes in orientation, I don’t’ see any reason why we can’t finish in two weeks now like we’re supposed to.”

Senior management major Daniel Morris commented on the convenience of having a centrally located office and hopes this will foster more involvement due to its greater accessibility.

“If you say (The GIVE Center is) just by Chick-fil-A, they might say ‘Oh, well I’m getting lunch there anyway’ and they might stop in and register, too,” Daniel Morris said.

Overall, the renovations are intended to help The GIVE Center more effectively service the community. For Michael Murphy, graduate assistant of marketing and social media, each enhancement will broaden the center’s reach, making a difference one person at a time.

“Even though you’ll never be able to make the world completely right, you can make it right for individuals,” Murphy said.

Although the space is new for The GIVE Center, the location is not. During the center’s red basket days, the suggestions were filed and organized in MSU.

“It started here,” Sedor said. “And now we’re going back home.”

Posted by Noelle Brooks on Jan 19 2012. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.