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by Jason Nemcosky '07
A new community service program, The Student Outreach Coordinators (SOC), has arrived at Virginia Wesleyan College with the objective of getting more students involved in service opportunities.
Student Outreach Coordinators make up the student leadership team of 
the Office of Community Service. They raise awareness of societal issues and inspire all Virginia Wesleyan College students, faculty and staff to engage in community action, by planning and implementing direct service projects that meet real community needs.
"We launched it this year," said Director of Community Services Diane Hotaling. "SOC is comprised of student leaders in four areas of social concern; a broad spectrum of things that we determined students had an interest in from surveys from the previous year."
An adviser has been selected for each of the four areas of youth, hunger and homelessness, health and the elderly and animals and the environment: Robin Takacs, Institutional Technology Coordinator and Blackboard Coordinator; Kathy Stolley, associate professor of sociology; Keith Moore, director of Residence Life; and Lina Green, director of the Jane P. Batten Student Center, respectively.
"SOC is an opportunity to develop leadership skills in areas of volunteer management. You can exercise your commitment to a particular social problem," Hotaling said.
Each group has an Outreach Coordinator (OC), which is the project leader responsible for working with the committee to plan and implement two projects per semester and schedule and coordinate two agencies for Mondays with Meaning in the fall. Mondays with Meaning is an opportunity for agencies that need volunteers to recruit people in the Batten Student Center. Each OC collaborates with a team of no more than five people, including advisers.
OCs agree to serve at least two hours a week in the Office of Community Service and are responsible for: setting project goals; monitoring project budgets; maintaining contact with advisors, team members and community partners; and leading projects through, from start to finish, including recruiting and orienting volunteers, project management, evaluation and recognizing volunteers.
To become an OC, students must be enrolled at Virginia Wesleyan full-time, have at least a 2.0 GPA and must have been a participant on an SOC team during the previous semester.
Hotaling believes being on an SOC team is important because "you can affect the things that are important to you. Our students are emerging citizens and all of what we do through this office is an opportunity to exercise your citizenship to practice being an active involved citizen and know what that means. I think SOC takes that to another level."
SOC held a campus beautification event on Wednesday, Oct. 4. The next SOC event takes place on Thursday, Oct. 19, when members will serve breakfast at the Oasis Social Ministry in Portsmouth, Va.
Applications for OCs and SOC team members are accepted throughout October, with the selections made by the Community Service Director in November.
For more information, contact the Office of Community Service at 455.3216.