Haley Murray
Daily Egyptian
Non-profit organizations are feeling the effects of summer, and it's not just the heat.
Because of the lower number of SIUC students in the summer months,
non-profit organizations, such as the Boys and Girls Club of
Carbondale, are finding themselves short of volunteers.
"We're shorter than we were in the school year, quite a bit actually,"
said Randy Osborne, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club.
The Boys and Girls Club and similar non-profit organizations work with
the Saluki Volunteer Corp, a campus-based program that helps both the
organizations and SIUC students by encouraging volunteerism in the
community.
While some students remain for summer classes, most return home or work
summer jobs, leaving the organizations without enough volunteers.
During the school year, Osborne may have six to 10 college students who
volunteer to work in arts and crafts, sports or other programs. Now,
Osborne has three high school student volunteers and a few people who
volunteer occasionally.
The Adolescent Health Center uses student volunteers for its Teen Reach
Program, in which the volunteers interact directly with teenagers. The
lower number of student volunteers in the summer has made it difficult
for the program's staff, Program Director Ginny Donney said.
The volunteers in the summer have less of an impact on the adolescents because there is less one-on-one interaction, she said.
"They have to wait for one volunteer to finish with the first kid before moving onto them," Donney said.
Mythili Rundblad, coordinator of Saluki Volunteer Corp, said the
majority of students volunteer as part of organizations, such as
sororities and fraternities or entire floors of residence halls. Those
groups just aren't around in the summer, she said.
"The fall and spring, all day long they come to see me and my graduate
assistant," she said. "In the summer, its two or three each week,
probably."
Rundblad said she is doing her best to let students know about
volunteer opportunities, but volunteer work is, by nature, voluntary
only.
"We are making our best efforts, but we don't force them," she said.
Until fall, when Rundblad said she expects volunteerism to pick up once
again, non-profit organizations are doing their best with what they
have.
"We are at a minimum supervision level," Osborne said. "We want it to
be a 15:1 ratio. That's where volunteers make a difference."
Reporter Haley Murray can be reached at
haley_murray@dailyegyptian.com
