Filling a need Sam LoDuca on the roof of the Newseum while on Washington Youth Tour.
Young man’s project connects students with volunteer opportunities
By Stephanie Snodgrass
T
hey say that necessity is the mother of invention. For Brewton’s Samuel “Sam” LoDuca, that was exactly the case when it came to creating “VoluNeed,” a texting service designed to fulfill a student’s graduation requirement for volunteer service hours. Organized last August, the service is celebrating its first full year connecting local high school students with volunteer opportunities in Escambia County. Its motto: Bringing the hands of the volunteer to the heart of the need. It works like this: a non-profit or community organization, such as Habitat for Humanity or a local church, sends Sam the information about their upcoming event – date, time, location, need, etc. Then Sam, through the service, texts the information to the nearly 200 students currently enrolled in the program. If a student’s schedule matches the need, they arrive to earn the volunteer hours.
How it began
Students who participate in organizations such as the National Honor Society (NHS) and the Student Government Associations (SGAs) are required to have a certain number of volunteer hours to earn distinction at graduation. Colleges and universities also
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put special emphasis on community service when applying for scholarship opportunities. The senior at T.R. Miller High School said when he began his search for volunteer opportunities, he noticed a “disconnect” between students and non-profit organizations. “It was really during my sophomore year when I noticed the disconnect,” Sam says. “I was trying to get volunteer hours for (NHS), and I realized I didn’t know where to go. “I got to asking, ‘Where can I go? What can I do?’ Knock on the door, I guess, and ask if they need help?” he said of his mission to local service hours. “I thought to myself, ‘I’m sure others are in my same situation.’ So, I talked with mom and said let’s do something about it. I decided we could be the middleman and connect people using technology.” And he was right. “I knew that nonprofits needed help to fill their ranks when conducting an event,” he says. “There was no influx of people, so I saw an opportunity to fix that. We weren’t sure how to implement it. We thought maybe a website or social media, but we ended up doing it as a text service.
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