SCORING COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS
Merging a love for athletics that she honed on a college basketball court with entrepreneurship principles she learned in a SLU classroom, Krista Clement (MBA ‘13) is poised to transform community volunteerism on college campuses across the U.S.
While teaching math at Compton Drew Middle School in St. Louis, Clement enrolled in the SLU master’s degree in educational leadership and MBA dual-degree program. She also worked as a graduate assistant in the Center for Entrepreneurship.
As founder of Helper Helper, LLC, Clement is helping to connect student-athletes with community engagement opportunities in their local communities.
“I probably wouldn’t have had the confidence to do what I’m doing right now – or even known that following my passion was a career option – had I not gone to SLU for business school,” she said.
Using a mobile app, individual athletes can track their volunteer activities, engage with fellow athletes on campus and search for future volunteer opportunities. University athletic departments can use the platform to measure the overall community involvement of their student-athletes, a task currently completed through Excel spreadsheets or not at all. “Having the ability to streamline that process and centralize the communications is one of the most important things when we’re talking about building these programs,” she said. The smartphone app, which is custom-branded to each subscribing university, also taps into the competitive spirit that drives college athletes by allowing users to see how their team stacks up against other teams on campus. “By talking with a number of student-athletes, we were able to align the features of the app around the experiences they are already familiar with – goals, stats, teams and competition,” Clement said.
KRISTA CLEMENT
Relationships Clement formed throughout her career as a young athlete have served her well as she traverses the country meeting with university athletic directors. “It’s just been amazing to see all the people that I’ve met throughout my life and how supportive they’ve been to make this possible for Helper Helper,” she said. With investment support from the Billiken Angels Network, Helper Helper will be rolling out on several college campuses this fall. “One of my main goals is to help student-athletes form a habit of helping so when they graduate, it’s something they bring into whatever community they’re part of.”
THE HELPER HELPER APP MAKES IT EASY FOR STUDENT-ATHLETES TO TRACK THEIR VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES.
After earning her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 2008 on a basketball scholarship, Clement signed on with Teach for America, a prestigious national organization that focuses on youth education in low-income communities.
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