Pictured, left to right, are Meagan Gosman, Janessa Colburn, Chloe Metaxotos, Olivia Boesch, and Kassy Tallman, who used their senior capstone project to help a nonprofit with communication issues.
Pictured, left to right, are Meagan Gosman, Janessa Colburn, Chloe Metaxotos, Olivia Boesch, and Kassy Tallman, who used their senior capstone project to help a nonprofit with communication issues.
CEDARVILLE, OHIO — For many college students, projects simply fulfill a grade. But some Cedarville University students majoring in communication are using their senior capstone project to serve their local community.
Communication student Janessa Colburn from Trout Lake, along with fellow students Olivia Boesch (Columbus, Ohio), Kassy Tallman (Louisville, Ky.), Meagan Gosman (Madison, Ind.) and Chloe Metaxotos, Merrimack, N.H.), sought to identify and solve communication issues within the nonprofit organization King’s Kids in Dayton, Ohio.
King’s Kids is part of a larger nonprofit called No Longer Strangers (nolongerstrangers.org). Cedarville’s volunteers at King’s Kids serve refugee children in Dayton by providing after-school activities, including Bible stories.
Colburn connected the team with King’s Kids, as she serves there as a volunteer.
The students started by learning the history, structure and existing communication procedures at King’s Kids. From there, the team identified what communication issues the organization was having, such as a lack of internal and external communication structure and the training of volunteers.
To solve some of these issues, they developed branches of leadership, suggested a project management software and created some sample social media posts to help build the organization’s online presence.
Once they created their solutions, they met with the director of the organization to talk through their plan.
“Colburn was really positive about a lot of what we had to say,” said Boesch.
The solutions offered could help the organization retain volunteers and make them better known in the community. “They are a faith-based organization, so not only were we working with an organization to help them communicate better, but we were also invested in making sure that they were positively impacting the lives of refugee children for Christ,” said Boesch.
“What we presented was a true capstone of all our work here at Cedarville. It’s the culmination of our entire communication academic journey,” Boesch said.
For more information about the University, visit cedarville.edu.
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