Social media campaign seeks students who serve community

Kris Mason
Staff Writer

A new Serve & Snap campaign sponsored by the Student Leadership and Involvement Center encourages VCU students who volunteer to post pictures of their service on the social media app Instagram.

The contest winners will be selected by a committee of  workers from the at Student Leadership and Involvement Center . In order to be eligible to receive prizes, students have to use the caption #VCUServe&Snap before Thursday, November 27  and register their service on MyOrgs by December 1.

The contest is only available to VCU students or groups who does service in Richmond. There is a grand prize of a VCU diploma frame and a two second place prizes of VCU “Swag” Bags.

Allison Hahn is a graduate assistant at the VCU center for student leadership and involvement center, she and other members of her area started the Serve & Snap campaign. Hahn said they got the idea from Appalachian State University who ran a similar campaign in 2013.

She said the  she has high hopes for the potential impact the program could have .

“Hopefully students realize the depth and wide variety of different service projects that VCU students are undertaking in the community as well as inspiring other students to get involved,” Hahn said.

The Center is currently promoting the campaign via email on the Telegram, Facebook, their own website, video advertisements in the student commons, flyers, volunteer email lists as well as word-of-mouth.

Snap and Serve ends right after Thanksgiving for a reason , according to Hahn.

“ We wanted to allow people to do service during Thanksgiving, because theres all sorts of service opportunities in Richmond to work at soup kitchens for Thanksgiving specifically,” Hahn said.

According to Hahn, there is not a shortage of opportunities for students to volunteer in the VCU community and there are more here than in other communities.

“VCU has an amazingly huge population and an amazingly huge opportunity to get involved in the Richmond community. and I wish that I saw more of that,” Hahn said. “ Being in the middle of Richmond city is really great advantage that VCU. There’s all sort of ways to get involved within walking distance.”

Hahn feels that there is an important relationship between the people who volunteer and the people they serve — it is a “two way street.”

Hahn cited the  leadership experience that volunteers gain as well as the tremendous benefits that the less fortunate and non- profit organization receive from free labor of volunteers.

As of Wednesday, November 6 there had been one post on Instagram using the hashtag. However, they plan on doing the same campaign in the spring semester.