Nick Newman

Overall, this semester has been great with NSLS and I have really liked all of our meetings, events, and community service outreach. For this experience, I am logging the hours spent between planning, preparing, hosting, and wrapping up/ collecting money from our community events. So far, we have hosted a grilled cheese fundraiser on Court Street (during Dad's weekend) to raise money for a charity: My Sister's Place, a Domestic Violence Agency located here in Athens. This was a great time all around because our group enjoyed the process of planning, setting up, and hosting, and we all knew that our work was helping a great cause. In addition to this, we hosted a community outreach event at the Athena movie theatre where we raised money through local fundraisers to host an event open to students and members of the community that they invite. We used our excess chapter pillar money to plan this event that brings together students at Ohio University.

First of all, I only need 3 more hours for my groups and organizations, so that is all I am counting this experience for even though it is easily over 20 hours of work total and this has been approved by Lisa Flowers-Clements. I volunteered for Copeland Scholars, by talking with our director Shea Burden, to be the Finance Lead for our Financial Literacy Fair. The fair is an entire day in Columbus Ohio at an elementary and middle school on April 23. So far, we have been setting up the activities and I have been coordinating everything. I have been tasked with being in charge of a very important project and it is unlike anything I have ever had to do before. The experience has been nothing short of amazing so far. From having to write emails on behalf of our director to keep everyone informed, to brainstorming ideas for activity stations, I have enjoyed all of the work I am doing. Our goal is to create 7 activity stations for the kids. The goal is to incorporate a game or activity to learn the financial literacy concept, they earn a financial treat (candy) for each exercise, they learn a fun fact about a non-profit at each station, and at the end of all stations, they will decide what non-profit to invest their money in. In order to make sure we are incorporating ideas that have backing, we are using Jack and Jill Financial Model handouts as our guide.

I think this experience was very fulfilling because I was able to help students and my university stay safe from COVID. I enjoyed meeting new people and becoming friends with fellow volunteers and workers. This volunteering session made me feel engaged and it has caused me to want to volunteer again. I really like working at the testing site because of the friendly people and its purpose. I think this is a great experience for students and community members alike and I hope to see more people volunteering for this role in the fututre.