Whitman College prides itself on its connection to the Walla Walla community, and one of the best ways it supports engagement outside of Whitman is through student volunteers. There are several programs that Whitman offers for volunteers through the Career and Community Engagement Center (CCEC), with three programs being aimed towards children in local public schools. These programs are looking for students to volunteer and enrich the life of local students.
The programs offered are The Friends Program, Friends Rock, The StoryTime Project, and the new Opportunity Program. The Student Leader of Education Partnerships, senior Natalie Lundberg is in charge of supporting the Community Engagement Team’s educational programs.
According to the CCEC website, the Friends Program was started in 1994 as a part of Jamy Wolverton’s Psychology thesis. In partnership with local nonprofit The Friends of Children of Walla Walla, the program helps foster sustained and healthy relationships between students and community members. Students who volunteer meet weekly with their designated student, sharing connections over school lunch and spending time at recess.
Co-Student Leaders junior Sofie Nyssen and sophomore Benitha Tumukunde spoke on the importance of the program and how it impacts the youth who participate.
“A lot of these students that we get involved with have been selected for this program for specific reasons, such as issues at home and sources of trauma. Whitman students provide a really strong support system. They [the students] can see strong mentors, strong adult roles in their lives. It gives the chance for Whitman students to connect with the community outside of campus,” Nyssen said.
Tumukunde also highlighted the need for more volunteers to meet demand since the program operates multiple elementary school campuses around town.
“People can join anytime. We’ll give you paperwork, you fill it out, we go through training and you start right away,” Tumukunde said.
The Co-Student Leaders said to lookout for emails about volunteering opportunities and upcoming events, and to email Nyssen or Tumukunde about joining the Friends Program if interested. For students hoping to experience the same goals of mentorship in a new forum, there’s the Friends Rock program —where Whitman students use the climbing gym as a forum to create connections and grow team building skills.
The Storytime Project began in 2002 in a collaboration between the CCEC and the Walla Walla YMCA. It has since become a permanent program, where Whitman students travel to elementary and Pre-K classrooms to read .
The CCEC website states the project aims to improve kids’ listening, speaking, writing, reading and critical thinking skills through exposure to reading while also promoting diversity, acceptance and the celebration of differing cultures through stories. The program includes children ages 2 to 7 and helps promote early learning skills and engages children in reading from a young age.
The mission statement of The Storytime Project is “promoting early learning in Walla Walla by bringing story characters alive.”
Natalie Lundberg, Student Leader of Education Partnerships, highlighted how the programs are beneficial to both the Whitman students and the children involved.
“Through our work with our community partners, all of our education programs are meeting specific, community-defined needs in Walla Walla. For example, the Friends Program helps to support children experiencing ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) by creating a consistent, stable relationship with an adult figure. Looking at the benefits through a volunteer’s lens, you get the opportunity to get outside of the Whitman bubble and interact with the Walla Walla community in a positive way, you get to build relationships and work with fun, enthusiastic kids,” Lunderg said.
Lundberg hopes Whitman students know they can join the programs at any time during the school year, and also highlighted the other programs offered through the CCEC.
“I would also like to mention that we have three other amazing programs through the Community Engagement team on our Non-Profit and Community Partnerships side: Stream Team, Food Justice Project and the Buddy Program,” Lundberg said.
There is a new volunteer program as well, focusing on high school students, called The Opportunity Program.
“The Opportunity Program is a volunteer program that invites Whitman students to be a tutor for Opportunity High School students. Volunteers will visit Opportunity once a week for one to one and a half hours, depending on their availability, to tutor in topics such as math, english and chemistry,” Lundberg said. “No special training on the subjects is needed — you don’t need to be an expert, you just need to be excited to help answer questions. This is a great experience for people looking to explore teaching as a career or looking to get involved in education.”
Volunteering offers an opportunity to enrich the lives of students in the Walla Walla community, not only offering educational opportunities but a place of support. If you are interested in joining any of the programs mentioned, email Lundberg at [email protected].
