Logan Turnbull

Reporting and News Writing

5/3/12

Profile Story: Lindsey Kent

     She volunteers; she recruits and directs incoming volunteers; she organizes volunteering tasks; she hosts orientations and reflections; Lindsey Kent is one busy college student.

     Lindsey Kent is a student at Stonehill College and those extra responsibilities are just some of the ones she took on when she became an Into The Streets coordinator. Into the Streets is a student organization dedicated to introducing students to thoughtful community service and is designed to increase student awareness of issues that affect our society through volunteer work.

     Kent, now a sophomore, has been volunteering for a large portion of her life. “I volunteered a lot in high school, it was a big part of the education at my school,” Kent said. When she came to Stonehill last year she knew she wanted to volunteer throughout her college career. “I started volunteering at the animal shelter down the street my freshmen year, but felt like I wanted to do more,” Kent said. Once she realized she could do more she got an interview for coordinator of elder care programs with ITS.

     As an ITS coordinator, Kent found that her responsibilities grew and many new people depended on her for her volunteering or to volunteer themselves. Besides volunteering herself she had to direct incoming volunteers, determine which volunteer service they wanted to serve, meet with service partners at the sights and determine what they wanted or expected, host orientations and reflections, set up her recruits schedules, participate in recruiting fairs, and email between services and volunteers.

     With all these new responsibilities added to her schedule filled will classes at Stonehill College and Bridgewater State University it would seem that she would be a walking stress-ball. “The most hectic part is the beginning of the semester because it’s a lot of hard work making everyone’s schedule work because you need people to have partners and work around their class schedule and finding people who are van certified. A lot of times the sites are stretched thin so they can’t accommodate volunteers at ideal times,” Kent said. However, she seems to have everything she does in control and her work with ITS has been vital. Kent takes pride in looking her best and she manages to do so even with her filled schedule of volunteering. She always makes enough time in the morning to apply makeup and select an outfit that’s right for the day.

     It’s interesting that a person like Lindsey Kent who strives to look her best all the time and make the right impression with everyone would sacrifice her time to volunteer for those who probably wouldn’t judge her appearance at all if she didn’t take time out of her day to look her best. She finds more satisfaction in volunteering than looking her best. “Meeting so many people is great. You meet the coordinator team, which is fun. You meet volunteers you do reflections with and you volunteer with people who share the same passion that you do,” said Kent. She wanted to emphasize that there’s more benefits to volunteering than the obvious satisfaction you get from helping people. “Being involved in ITS has allowed her to meet different students that she wouldn’t have met otherwise and form friendships with them. She also comes back with a lot of stories about her volunteer work makes her feel good about herself by helping others. And she has a great award given to her for her efforts,” said Stephanie LeSaffre, Kent’s roommate. Kent works with the elderly and loves all of the older people she works with and has many special memories with them. She doesn’t believe that people know the benefits of volunteering besides that, so she wants to stress that the community you build with other volunteers is strong and she loves it.

     Kent had to be an ITS coordinator this year when the staff was short. She had to run four different locations and organize what students would go where and when. She believes more people should volunteer, especially with ITS. Her tenacity and passion with volunteering is shown in her face when she talks about it. Her intense, dark eyes don’t break eye contact and she speaks with confidence and sincerity. Her genuine tone and polite personality allows one to easily see how she is so involved in volunteering with ITS. “I think you should because you meet so many people and go outside the Stonehill bubble. You get to help people and it’s such a great program. It’s very unique and fun to get involved with and you can experience different things,” Kent said when asked about recommending volunteering with ITS to others. She wants more Stonehill students to take advantage of the access they have to ITS. She found her journey to coordinator or elderly care easy because Stonehill has a great connection to the ITS program and allows its students to take advantage of it.

     Kent believes Stonehill does a good job getting students to get out into the world outside of Stonehill and volunteer. “I think so. Programs like ITS and HOPE service trips are things the college does great in terms of getting kids to volunteer. Just having those programs and on freshmen orientation they have ITS day so it gets kids aware of volunteering and it can be part of what they do here at Stonehill College,” Kent said. She realizes that many places around the world don’t volunteer much because they don’t fully know the means to go about starting to volunteer. “Not just based on previous experience, but on the HOPE trip she definitely displayed valuable volunteer skills. She really connected with the people there. One lady whose home was destroyed connected well with Lindsey was concerned for her,” said sophomore Julia Trombley who went on the HOPE service trip with Kent. She’s thankful for her opportunities and she’s obviously utilized all of them to enjoy a long career of volunteering. Through her many years of doing service work she’s noticed a couple trends in the volunteering world.

     She’s observed that for the most part females volunteer more than males. She knows that’s not always true, but from her experience she hasn’t run into nearly as many male volunteers as female. “That is a problem; I feel like part of that here at Stonehill might be because there are more girls than guys. Plus guys don’t see volunteering as something they want to do, whereas girls are more oriented towards that kind of thing. Guys don’t automatically jump to. I don’t really know why that is, but it’s too bad,” said Kent. The lack of male volunteers is clear through her own recruiting. She’s had trouble in the past and continues to today in recruiting males for her elderly care stations. Even though it’s not as easy to get male volunteers, she still makes a conscious effort to reach out to guys in her emails when recruiting volunteers. Kent believes males are just as needed as females in the volunteering world. Even though there aren’t as many males as she would hope volunteering, she still greatly enjoys all of her volunteering hours.

     “One time I was playing bingo with one of my favorite residents and we ended up winning. When she picked out her prize she gave it to me and I keep it on my wristlet all the time now,” Kent said. This is just one of her many favorite memories she has from her many experiences volunteering and being a coordinator for ITS. When describing this memory she had a smile on her face and a tone of reminiscing in her voice. Her eyes drifted off as she vividly remembered her cherished experience. Kent didn’t gather memories like this through one forced day of volunteering like all freshmen at Stonehill College are forced to take. She received this experience through her tenacity and compassion for volunteering and she doesn’t plan on stopping soon.

     Lindsey Kent doesn’t know what her future will hold, but she hopes that she’ll be able to stay true to her volunteering path.  She wants to volunteer for a long time. “I guess as long as I can, definitely through college and a little after. It’s hard to know if I’ll be able to in the near future, but I know I want to,” said Kent. Her desire to volunteer is strong and her skills as a coordinator or clearly visible in the success of her management. Her position may holster many responsibilities, but she finds nothing but pleasure in the end. While there are some stresses to it, she believes they are easily outweighed by the ending results of volunteering and getting other students to volunteer as well. Kent has shown dedication to a worthy cause that is commendable and admirable that all students should strive for. Her genuine drive to help others is inspiring and influential. Hopefully, her passion will impact others in a positive way and they will inherit her qualities that give her the push to go out and volunteer and become a strong force in the volunteering world.

http://youtu.be/3lH5JeAq_1w