Krista is the Assistant Director for Rutgers University’s Student Involvement and Community Service Initiatives. Her day can involve a wide scope of tasks, from connecting students to service opportunities to community outreach to establish partnerships with area charities.
Transcript
>> Krista Coleman: Oh. My name is Krista Coleman [assumed spelling]. I work at Rutgers University in Student Life, which is part of College Student Affairs. And what that means is I advise college students in all different areas of their lives, so primarily working in community service. So I help college students find service and volunteer opportunities, and help them find meaning making connections with the community. I work with a group called "the Student Volunteer Council," so they're really enthusiastic and passionate students who want to volunteer their time. So I make connections with community partners in New Brunswick, ranging from Elijah's Promise, which is a soup kitchen, to a senior citizens home, to all these different kinds of organizations that provide services for those who are the underrepresented populations, or maybe living in poverty and having to deal with some of the issues that come along with living in an urban area like New Brunswick. So starting with the Student Volunteer Council, I also work with a group called "Alternative Breaks," and they travel all over the country to do community service work in all different areas from cities to rural. And they even have been traveling internationally, so getting to work with all those different kinds of groups on community service. Student [inaudible] is very -- you have to be very good at multitasking, so what I end up doing on a given day is I'll probably fly into the office and answer a few emails, and maybe have a meeting with a student organization like the Palisade [phonetic] Children's Relief Fund, for example, and they're planning a banquet to raise money for awareness about Palestinian issues; so help them kind of square away their budget, and take care of those issues. And then I might be meeting with someone from Student Volunteer Council to talk to them about a program that they're doing, or a trip that they're running. And then I might in the afternoon have a meeting with another colleague who works at the university to talk about collaborating on a bigger project. We just had a scarlet [phonetic] day of service with over 350 student volunteers that went to 25 different organizations. On any given day I might end up meeting with the community, with the Community Partner, New Brunswick, or having a phone conversation with them, and then just kind of the daily interactions with all of our student workers, basically spending all of my time with college students, which is really fun. And it's nice to be able to make those connections and really feel like I'm helping them make a difference in what they do. [Silence]
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