Nursing Student Named Volunteer of the Year

May 8, 2008

Katie Herrera, the recipient of the award.

An integral part of the KU Medical Center's mission is to improve the health and lives of our fellow Wyandotte County residents. If students like Katie Herrera are any indication, that effort is expanding at breakneck speed.

Herrera, a junior in the School of Nursing, was recently honored by the United Way of Wyandotte County as the Volunteer of the Year, after spending scores of hours working with Wyandotte County youths. She worked with the local organization Associated Youth Services through the Medical Center's Community Outreach Program, which educates students about local needs and provides exposure to social service providers.

“It's nice to provide any kind of help we can,” Herrera said. “You get a great feeling when the kids you work with are receptive to your work, and even excited about the progress you make.”

Herrera has worked in several programs through AYS, including the Hip-Hop for Health Fair, which utilizes contemporary themes to educate children about preventive health, the AYS Academy, which provides alternative schooling for long-term suspended youth, and Home Ties, which allows volunteers to tutor and mentor young men in a group living setting.

“Mentoring is really rewarding,” Herrera said. “The kids often just need someone to talk to or to listen to them. You don't know what they go home to, so you want to provide the best assistance you can while you're there.”

The work with long-term suspended students is particularly important, Herrera says, because those students are removed from structure and peer groups for long periods of time. Access to sympathetic and encouraging voices, then, is of heightened importance to this group.

“When they come up to you and ask you for advice, or tell you about something that's going on in their lives, it makes you feel great about the work,” Herrera said. “We just hope that we're making some kind of positive difference.”