When Sheila Lammers’ husband was deployed to Germany with the Illinois National Guard in 2002, their first child was only five months old. So when he came back home six months later, just before his daughter’s first birthday, he was like a stranger to her. Getting reacquainted took time.
“My expectation was that I was going to find instant relief by having my husband back home again and able to help,” Lammers says. “But the process is much more gradual.”
Lammers says she could have used a program like Operation Military Kids, an outreach project recently taken on by LAS Leaders. Operation Military Kids helps Illinois families adjust when a soldier returns from deployment by providing them with specially tailored kits loaded with all sorts of items and activities to help them come back together as a family—games, movies and popcorn, museum passes, toys, Frisbees, Nerf footballs, and more.
Lammers oversees the LAS Leaders program, but the idea to raise money and seek donations for Operation Military Kids didn’t come from her, despite its close connection to her own personal experience. The idea came from a member of LAS Leaders, Kaylin Jamnicki, a senior in English with a minor in leadership studies. The project has become a group effort, and it has included fundraising activities, such as a kickball tournament that they ran on campus to raise money for the kits.
LAS Leaders is a student ambassador program that began in 2001, and it consists of 30 undergraduates who tackle a variety of tasks within the college and the community, from volunteering for a local food pantry and Habitat for Humanity to helping at Champaign’s Orpheum Children’s Science Museum.
Within the college, LAS Leaders serve all departments, assisting with special events, such as investitures and award ceremonies, as well as the open house for the recently renovated Lincoln Hall. In addition, they act as important links to alumni.
“It’s so helpful to have young volunteers so full of energy and excited about the alumni and other people they meet,” says Lammers.
Jamnicki says some of her most memorable times during her four years as an LAS Leader came at special alumni events, such as a Cubs-Cardinals game, where she greeted alumni who added a splash of orange to the Cubs’ blue and Cardinals’ red.
Matt Campion, a junior in political science and president of LAS Leaders, says the organization changed the trajectory of his career plans. He has so enjoyed working with incoming freshmen and connecting with alumni through LAS Leaders that he hopes to eventually work with a university, either in the advancement or admissions offices.
“LAS Leaders has given me a great perspective on all of the moving pieces that come together to operate the University,” Campion says.
The connections that LAS Leaders make with alumni can be invaluable, as one member of the group, Eryn Finke, discovered several years back. Finke, an alumna of LAS Leaders, was given the job of escorting an LAS Alumni Achievement Award winner around campus—a retired top executive with Exxon Mobil. Through this connection, she received a summer internship at Exxon and now works with the company as a chemical engineer.
Jamnicki says LAS Leaders even helped her to adjust to the University when she first arrived on campus as a freshman. “The U of I was so big and I wondered, ‘Where do I fit?’” she says. “I had never been away from home for so long, and it was tough. But once I got involved with LAS Leaders, I knew I was going to be fine.”
In fact, she says she now hopes to find a job in student affairs, advising and helping new students. She also says the friendships she developed among other LAS Leaders have become some of her strongest, for the group does many social activities together, whether it is visiting an apple orchard or simply hanging out, playing games, and seeing movies.
“LAS Leaders is very close-knit. It’s like a family,” Campion says. “This group has also led me to believe in the transformative power of higher education, especially with an LAS degree.”
