College Sports Information Directors of America

by Sam Atkinson, Gallaudet University
CoSIDA Board of Directors
Former Goodwill & Wellness Committee Chair

2014-15 CoSIDA Volunteer 15 participants

The CoSIDA membership, once again, showed that #CoSIDAcares during the 2014-15 school year as 61 members participated in the first year of the Volunteer 15 program. The group volunteered 3,546 hours in their communities and campuses.

The CoSIDA Volunteer 15 program is an initiative to get CoSIDA members more involved in their communities. The program is designed to help promote the great efforts and success our members have in their communities. To qualify, CoSIDA members had to volunteer at least 15 hours during the school year. The program is administered by the CoSIDA Goodwill and Wellness Committee.

Volunteer 15 participants served their communities as advocates, tutors, mentors, coaches, scout leaders and Sunday School teachers, to name a few, aside from their day-to-day duties as strategic communicators for college athletics.

Over half of the Volunteer 15 participants doubled the amount of necessary hours by volunteering 30 or more hours. Members didn’t stop there as 19 volunteered over 50 hours, 11 volunteered over 100 hours and four individuals logged 200 or more hours. Those four individuals include 2015-16 CoSIDA President Judy Willson (Mountain West Conference), Jacob VanRyn (Northeast-10 Conference), Ethan Armstrong (Gustavus Adolphus) and Chris Wenzler (John Carroll), who logged the most with 224 hours. Wenzler was a campus immersion experience team leader when he traveled to Ecuador this past spring semester.

“We are elated that we surpassed our initial goal of 3,000 volunteer hours during the first year of the Volunteer 15 program,” said Sam Atkinson (Gallaudet University), former chair of the CoSIDA Goodwill and Wellness Committee and founder of the Volunteer 15 program who now serves on the CoSIDA Board of Directors. “We know there are many more CoSIDA members that volunteer their precious free time in their communities and are making a difference. We hope more will participate in the Volunteer 15 program during the 2015-16 school year.”

Two groups had 100 percent participation as 17 members of the CoSIDA Goodwill and Wellness Committee and all four of the CoSIDA staff members successfully completed the Volunteer 15 program. In addition, eight members of the 2014-15 CoSIDA Board of Directors completed the program.

Division III SIDs led the way with 25 participants, followed by Division II (16), Division I (15) and one from the NAIA ranks.

If you missed out on participating this year, the 2015-16 Volunteer 15 program runs from July 2015 until June 30, 2016. Complete your form once you have volunteered 15 or more hours and email it to volunteer@cosida.com.

2014-15 CoSIDA Volunteer 15 Participants

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