Nevada Volunteers Higher Education Initiative Archives

Guest Post #4: Networking in Vegas by Rae Lathrop

Our guest blogger, Rae Lathrop, has been one of two Nevada Volunteers’ AmeriCorps VISTAs this past year. She has promoted service and service-learning for the UNLV campus in Las Vegas. One of her passions as a VISTA has been to start up a networking group for young nonprofit professionals in the Southern Nevada region. Since this is her last week with us, before moving on to become Volunteer Coordinator for the Outside Las Vegas Foundation, we invited her to share her excitement for this new, much needed, group.

Here is what she had to say:

Despite all the economic reports and educational cuts, I feel like Las Vegas is a great place to be. Maybe I’m only talking to the most positive of community members, but I truly feel that great things are happening here. In the past year, I’ve only met people–busy with work and personal commitments—who attempt to bring positivity to everyone they meet and everything they do. I was talking to a woman at a networking event recently and explained my theory that the people who are here are the ones who didn’t flee when times got tough, and they are ready to put in the effort to bring this community back to life. She actually agreed, which surprised me because she doesn’t even work with nonprofits. I didn’t know that others felt this way. (more…)

Stephanie reports on the student surveys for the Advisory Committee.

It’s the end of the college year for students on Nevada campuses and also time to wrap up the student work groups that Nevada Volunteers organized at colleges across the state for their Higher Education Initiative. Stephanie has been part of this initiative to inspire more students to become involved in their surrounding communities, and she has been quite busy building a bridge.

Stephanie is a graduate student at the University of Nevada, Reno, and received her undergraduate degree in Massachusetts at a college that required at least 40 hours of community service to graduate. There were resources on that campus directed toward helping students meet the requirement, but Nevada colleges and universities have no such requirement. Stephanie says of Nevada, “I see the bridge that needs to be built between the campus and nonprofits, and it feels good to be working toward building that bridge.” (more…)