Through being in the Cormier Honors College, students are given multiple volunteer opportunities throughout the year. The first example honors students see of how important service is to the college comes during the honors retreat. Each year, the Cormier Honors College tries to coordinate with a local organization to allow students to volunteer. In my freshman year, we traveled to Heartland Horse Heroes Therapeutic Riding Center in Buckingham, Virginia, to clean stalls, paint barns, and do any necessary landscaping work around the farm. It was a unique experience for me, as my aunt and uncle have a horse farm that my family visits occasionally, but I have never had much hands-on experience helping out around horses. Although our day at Heartland Horse Heroes Therapeutic Riding Center during the honors retreat was tiring, I found it to be a great way to start off my time in honors at Longwood.

During my second semester at Longwood I was also introduced to the unique opportunity to volunteer for the Southside Center for Violence Prevention and aid in their production of The Vagina Monologues, which was put on at the historic Robert Russa Moton Museum not far from Longwood. Although this opportunity was not directly a part of the Cormier Honors College, it was presented to me by one of my honors professors as a way to gain a more detailed understanding of our course, Reproductive Justice [WGST 495]. Being a part of this event and hearing actual women’s experiences was an eye-opening experience for me, and I am happy to know of the small role I played in its success.