Name: Sydney Hunt
Age: 18
Hometown: Solvang, CA
Major: Pre-biology
What is Students with Hearts?
It is an official nonprofit at the national level that reaches out to colleges to start chapters of Students with Hearts. Those chapters then get the college students volunteering with the elderly at local senior living communities. These chapters also reach out to high schools in the local area and get them to start their own clubs and volunteer at one senior living community nearby.
What would you say is the main purpose of Students with Hearts?
Basically the main purpose is to get the youth, from high school to college level students, to get involved with the elderly, which isn’t a thing you’re really seeing right now.
What does Students with Hearts of UCSB do currently?
As the first official chapter, we’re kind of like the role model for the other chapters. What we do right now as a group is we volunteer at multiple senior living communities around Santa Barbara. We’re going to be starting at Friendship Manor in Isla Vista, but right now we currently are at Villa Santa Barbara in Downtown Santa Barbara and at Heritage House in Goleta. Soon we’ll also start contacting local high schools and get them to start clubs.
What made you decide to start the Students with Hearts non-profit?
So I switched high schools my junior year and at about that time my grandmother on my mom’s side was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I didn’t really know what that was at the time so I did some research on it and learned it was a form of dementia that basically causes a lot of horrible memory loss and affects many people worldwide. I really wanted to help her, but I couldn’t since she lives in Washington state. I realized that what these people really need is basic interaction, such as conversation, to keep their minds flowing. So what I decided to do was help people here that were like my grandmother because I know I would want someone to do the same for her. I started a club at my high school called Pirates with Hearts (separate from SWH) and we volunteered once a week at a senior community across the street from our school where we worked with people who had Alzheimer’s and dementia, and also just normal retirees. After seeing how much everyone enjoyed it and the bonds people formed, I decided to expand it and started my nonprofit Students with Hearts. Things didn’t really pick up for it until I got to college and began to form chapters and change our approach to start chapters and spread the word.
How often does the group volunteer?
Well currently, on a regular basis we volunteer twice a week: one day at Heritage house for an hour and with Villa Santa Barbara for an hour on Fridays. However, we do have some events with Friendship Manor coming up, and we will be doing bigger events for them once a month. But our goal is to begin working with two to three other senior living communities and do two to three days a week at Villa Santa Barbara. So about two to three days a week is what we do consistently right now.
What is your favorite memory of volunteering?
Its definitely a tie between these two elderly men at the Friendship House where we started our club volunteering in high school. One of them was Jack, he went to USC and people would always ask him what he majored in and he would say “Oh I majored in drugs,” which was like his classic joke since he studied pharmacology, so it was just really cute. The other was Henning, who was just the coolest guy and my favorite moment was when I’d learned that he had been a Vietnam War veteran and he had lost both his legs when he was 21 and he was like 70-something when I met him, but I remember at the end of my senior year when I got close to ending my time volunteering there and we were hanging out and he suddenly looked at me and said, “You’re like a daughter to me” and it made me so happy to know we had built such a strong relationship.
Anything else you would like to add about SWH?
The whole reason we are here is we want to build awareness in students at both the high school and university level that the elderly are important and we’re trying to overcome the stereotype that a lot of young people have about the elderly as boring. We want them to see that when you spend time with the elderly and hear their really cool stories and play games with them and see just how happy you make them that it brings so much joy to you. The joy you bring to others is way more fulfilling than doing things purely for yourself. Also, I hope more people will join us.
If you are interested in joining, check out the Students with Hearts of UCSB Facebook page for more information.