A new platform called Gorilla Action is launching, and acts as a central location for students to find volunteer and community service opportunities. The platform allows organizations in need of volunteer help to post their service online, and Pitt State students, faculty, or staff can sign up to help.
Lacy O’Malley, Campus Activities’ assistant director for Service & Civic Engagement oversees coordinating the platform.
“I’ve been in this role about nine months; it’s a new role. I think that the university has been wanting to get a program like this for a while, and the Pritchett trust foundation provided some funding for the purchase of the software,” O’Malley explains.
The demand for a service like Gorilla Action has also been evident among students.
“From what I’ve heard, there’s been a lot of need that students have expressed over the years,” O’Malley says. “If you are in an organization that requires service hours, you’re calling organizations trying to find opportunities and then you’re having to track and coordinate it. The platform [Gorilla Action] tracks it all for you as a student, so you don’t have to go make your own list of the services that you’ve done.”
O’Malley also explains that the community of Pittsburg has been wanting to connect with Pitt State students more, and this platform can provide that.
“They [the organizations] sign up and I’ll meet with them to go over some stuff, but then they’re able to post opportunities. They can see who has signed up for it and they can also message all of the people who’ve responded to things through the platform,” she explains. “It makes it a lot easier for the groups that are posting stuff on there to coordinate the good that they’re doing in the community.”
The platform doesn’t just apply to community service-based organizations off campus, though.
Borin Arnold, the president of the Care to Share club on campus, says she thinks Gorilla Action is a great way to get to know Pitt State clubs and see what they actually do, separating the community service clubs from entertainment-based ones.
Care to Share focusses on doing hands-on activities to support people affected by cancer in and around the community.
“We do care packages for chemotherapy patients, and then we have a big festival hosted in Fort Scott, and that’s where the main Care to Share [organization] is located,” Arnold says. “We gather volunteers to help with that and just do small activities to bring awareness.”
For O’Malley, the platform is more than just helping students find volunteer opportunities. Volunteering is important to her because she gets to give back to people in the process.
“I think volunteering, personally, I find it really fulfilling to be able to interact with other people that I might not see every single day and give back to them,” she says. “I’ve gotten a lot from this world, and I think it’s important to give back to the world.”
Gorilla Action is still in its soft pilot launch phase, according to O’Malley, but all staff and students can log in to the platform by visiting pittstate.galaxydigital.com and entering their single sign on Pitt State credentials.
