National Volunteer Recognition Day: A Q&A with the top volunteers from April and calendar of remaining SHARE events

Juniors Mille Norden, Ella Howard and Marin McElhinney are featured in honor of National Volunteer Recognition Day for their contributions to SHARE. They recently took part in and advertised for a food drive-thru at St. Paul’s where hundreds of hot meals were distributed. 

When and why did you first join SHARE?

“I've been a SHARE chair for the past two years and my brother did SHARE, so he introduced me to it and told me about the program. It’s really cool that it's just so normal between friend groups and that everyone in the school is involved in SHARE in some way.”

What’s your favorite place you’ve ever volunteered at?

“Definitely Giving Hope KC. I found it on my own and I asked my friends if they wanted to go originally. It went so well the first weekend that the next I would ask more and more people to help out with me. It's like a drive-thru where you hand out food, which is similar to the St. Paul’s event in the way that we hand out food to those in need.”

What would be your dream volunteering event?

“I actually signed up for an event with the organization The Upper Room, which helps to tutor kids. Since I already tutor a few kids in my spare time, I looked into it last summer, but I couldn't really get involved until now. I'm going to organize the event for East SHARE next year.” 

What does the organization of SHARE mean to you?

“SHARE helps students get involved because it can be really intimidating to find volunteer outlets within the community. Not a lot of high schoolers are going to go out and volunteer alone [at] Harvesters or somewhere like that. But SHARE is a really good and accessible way to get high school students involved and also encourage volunteering past high school.”

What is unique about SHARE?

“There are around 40 projects offered [year round] and within those 40 projects, everybody is destined to find at least one which is really important to them. SHARE eases people into leadership roles due to the SHARE Chair aspect of the organization.”

What does being a volunteer mean to you?

“Volunteering is synonymous with selflessness. Many of the events throughout the school year are drives like volleyball tournaments and dodgeball tournaments where the admission is diapers or canned food. A lot of students that go to Shawnee Mission East are very fortunate in that their families can afford to give those kinds of resources. Volunteering isn't necessarily like going out in the community, even though that’s the beauty of it, but instead giving your own resources to others.”

What would you do with $10 million dollars other than invest it?

“I would use $5 million to buy a private plane and fly it to my own island with a big mansion and a private country club. And then I would obviously donate the other $5 million to charity organizations.”

What has been your biggest accomplishment on SHARE this year?

“I’d say my last event: St. Paul’s, was the best one. We had more people than we had jobs, but I'd say that is a good sign since we'd rather have too many people than not enough. Also, it took a while to get this project started because we weren't really in contact with the right organization right away so once we got it all together it was very rewarding.”

What does being a volunteer mean to you?

“I think it means you're willing to help out and do whatever you're asked to do. When I go to volunteer I have to have an open mind and expect to do a range of things and not just go in expecting to do one activity.”

What would be your dream volunteering event?
“I would love to organize a dog volunteering event next year at somewhere like Wayside Waifs because I used to volunteer there with my mom and I think many East students would be ready to get involved with the dogs and other animals.”