1. Helping Hands: exploring the relationship between student leadership and service Raquél Pérez, Nursing
Introduction
Since 2015, there has been a gradual decrease in the number of people who volunteer in the United States. While many show interest in using their spare time to help the community, there is a staggering disconnect between those that show interest and those that engage in service. In 2016, I was crowned Miss East Greenwich and chose to spend my year of representation through service---I created and founded Helping Hands: Encouraging Volunteerism.
Focus
As a leadership minor, I recognize that URI is full of student leaders. As an experienced volunteer, I also recognize that many of those student leaders fall under the category of servant leaders. In order to expand the scope of Helping Hands, I paired with the Center for Student Leadership Development to examine what motivates those students to volunteer, and how others can be motivated to do the same.
Methods
Through a blog featured on my personal website, and Facebook page, Raquél Lynn Pérez, I was able to interview various student leaders. Each gave their own input as to what motivates youth and young adults to volunteer. They shared their experience of how they began serving and shared branding and marketing traps that volunteer organizations often fall into, causing a decrease in volunteer numbers.
Helping Hands aims to improve volunteer rates through youth involvement. As Miss East Greenwich, I promoted service by visiting schools and using interactive tools to get students signed onto volunteer forums and websites. This year, my goal was to expand the purpose behind Helping Hands by re-examining a different age-group: college-aged students.
For the 2017 Rainville Awards, I served on the committee for Servant Leadership. This allowed me to become familiar with students that go above and beyond to give back to their community, while giving insight into their motivation to do so. An additional component to my project was planning and organizing the 2017 Volunteer Fair held on the URI Quad on April 24th. This experience allowed me to recognize branding and marketing strategies that can be implemented in order to attract more volunteers.
Featured blog posts on
Acknowledgements
Sponsor: Melissa Boyd-Colvin,
Center for Student Leadership Development e

2. Summary
The relationship between service and leadership have a direct correlation; service is leadership
The marketing and branding strategies that non- profit organizations use must be impactful in order to gain new volunteers
Consistent volunteers must be willing to share their own story about passion for what they do, in order to inspire others to begin their own journey