Last year, IMPACT, Auburn’s largest student-run volunteer organization, reached its goal of completing over 10,000 combined service hours. Following the record-setting year, the organization is looking to build on the success.
With the 16 project sites resuming this week, the 55 volunteer opportunities through IMPACT are once again open to Auburn students.
“If you don’t like kids, we also do stuff outside,” said Claudia Casanova, president of IMPACT. “You don’t have to like one specific thing to be a part of our organization, and it’s a great way to definitely reach different parts of campus that typically aren’t as involved.”
Students can pick from a number of different volunteer sites with varying issues, ranging from hunger to child services. Casanova said IMPACT strives to have enough sites for every student to be able to find something they are passionate about. A full list of the volunteer sites and IMPACT’s schedule can be found on its AUInvolve page.
One of the organization’s main goals for the year is to focus on getting the freshmen population as involved as possible. Casanova said that making a connection early on goes a long way to forming a long-term relationship with a project site.
Casanova, now a senior in biomedical sciences, was a project coordinator for the Humane Society as a sophomore. With her major being related to the medical field, volunteering with IMPACT provided professional experience as well as an outlet for serving communities she is passionate about.
“That was a great way for me to have a home away from home because I have four German sheperds and four cats back home,” Casanova said. “So I got to spend one time a week volunteering with animals, which I really loved.”
Casanova said students will see familiar volunteer sites as those in the past since the sites have not changed over the past few years. But she added that the organization recently formalized a process for the possibility of introducing new sites.
“That’s so important that we have that consistency, that we keep going back, that students are really enjoying IMPACT and wanting to come back and forming those relationships with our project sites,” Casanova said.
She also said the organization is planning other collaborations and partnerships to get more of a variety of volunteers.
As the president of the organization, Casanova has made it a mission to foster a culture among the 71 project coordinators of fellowship that she hopes will have a ripple effect out to the student volunteers at Auburn.
All students looking to volunteer with IMPACT are required to fill out a consent form, and all the volunteers meet at the intramural fields prior to going to the site.
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