The goal of Victors Volunteer is to spread awareness of the volunteer communities on and around campus, as well as spread awareness of the positive impacts helping others has had on our Michigan peers. We choose to take a ‘Humans of New York’ approach by sharing a personal volunteer-related story and photo on multiple (Facebook, Instagram, and a Wix Blog) social media platforms. By sharing personal volunteer experiences, our social media platforms act as a resource of where and why to get involved.
In the twelve days that we posted to our social media, we reached over 2,000 people in page and post views. We surpassed our original goal!
As a secondary tactic to reach a broader audience, we planned a celebratory and networking event. With a generous grant from Barger Leadership Institute, we were successfully able to host a volunteer celebration and collaboration. As a thank you to the thirty interviewees, we invited them to the LSA opportunity hub for pizza, salad, and refreshments. They were encouraged to bring their friends or invite others interested in, or already in another service community.
Although our event ran smoothly, we faced an expected challenge – turnout.
Our event was small (15 including ourselves) however, we enjoyed a few hours of sharing volunteer stories, discussing our favorite places to volunteer, and making recommendations for which student organizations on campus would be interesting for an individual based on their interests. We had a few people come who had not been interviewed, but saw our posts on Facebook, and wanted to know more about our project, or a specific organization that was written about on our page. We considered this another small success because we were engaging a broader audience and inspiring more to get involved.
Our group is thankful for the opportunity the Barger Leadership Institute awarded us and plan to continue sharing volunteer stories of the Helpful Humans of Michigan.
- Megan Gargaro, Allie Mangus, Scott Rola, Daria Hurley, and Danielle Tondreau
