Georgia Southern not only educates its students but also gives them opportunities to give back to the community they're a part of. One of the ways they do this is through the Serve912 Program, part of the Office of Leadership and Community Engagement. Serve912 is a community outreach program that allows students to engage with the Statesboro community through year-round acts of service.
"Our mission and our vision as an office is to empower students to lead positive change; one of the ways we do this is to create active citizens through the Serve912 program as well as our other community engagement programs and leadership programs," said Community Engagement Coordinator Emily Tanner. "We believe that in order to do that, our students need to be consistently serving and seeing what it means, because our communities don't just need us one day of the year or one week of the year. They need us every week. They need us every day to show up."
Serving throughout the Statesboro community
Serve912 groups go on regular trips to serve throughout the community, reaching out and engaging with many different organizations. The Statesboro team works with organizations like the GSU Food Pantry, the Statesboro Humane Society ReTails Thrift Shop, the Christian Social Ministry Thrift Store, the Statesboro Family YMCA, the Statesboro Main Street Farmers Market, various soup kitchens, and more.
Students can also intern as community liaisons when working for Serve912. These liaisons work as ambassadors between the Statesboro community and Georgia Southern.
"The community liaisons generally have to be someone who's got a lot of creativity," Tanner said. "It takes creative thinking to be able to create these events and be able to reach student populations."
Serve912 typically hires students for this position who already have experience with serving the community. They may have previously held positions in honors societies, sororities or fraternities, or as resident advisors, for example. Knowing a foreign language or having experience working with young children can also go a long way in getting hired for this position. More information on liaisons can be found here.
Accessible opportunities to serve
As far as standard volunteers go, at least for most volunteer opportunities, no prior experience is needed to join Serve912.
"I would say probably 80% to 90% of our volunteer opportunities are just broad strokes; pretty much any student can do it," said Tanner. "And that's intentional; we want those service opportunities to be very, very accessible. And even the positions that we would want some sort of specialized interests or training for, we have the tools and resources to provide that training."
Serving your community once or twice is something anyone can do, but consistently coming back to help those in need is what Serve912 is all about. Students can sign up for upcoming trips and events online here.
For full information on Serve912's programs in both Statesboro and Savannah, visit the OLCE website.
