I Found My Service Track!

by Eddie Sonnie

For the requirements for the President’s Leadership Program, we need to complete a certain amount of service hours every year, and by our second year, we should be completing those hours within a specific service track with one of the university’s community partners. For the longest time, it was pretty hard for me to get into a service track, but this semester I was able to find a community partner that fit within a service track that I like, and on top of that, it’s ON CAMPUS!

The service track that I was interested in was Arts & Culture because I feel like that is inherently more interesting for my personality type. I knew that there were a few things that I wouldn’t find fun, such as working in a museum, because history is definitely not my favorite subject. Then one day, while I was in the library procrastinating on a paper, I looked on the CNU Engage website (where we log our service hours) and went under the community partners tab and found the Arts for All program, sent an email and my resume, and the next thing I knew, I was on the schedule for this semester to volunteer!

Volunteering with the Arts for All program is fun, pretty easy, and I can immediately see where my efforts are making a difference. The Arts for All program works with the Ferguson Center for the Arts on campus, and we sell merchandise and posters before, during, and after shows in the Diamonstein Concert Hall, and all of the proceeds go towards funding for free and reduced tickets for Newport News Public School students who want to attend shows but cannot afford it, as well as compensating for veterans and senior citizen discounts for tickets. 

While I was working the table last week, I saw a lot of people who came with Arts for All tickets, and it was really awesome for them to come up to the table and say thanks for helping them see the show, and it really made me feel happy that I chose to volunteer with Arts for All, and I look forward to volunteering with them for the rest of my time at Christopher Newport!