Kathryn Wheet ’04 helps students receive a worldly education as an international programs advisor at Elon, but for two weeks in July, she brought the world home to children in her native Maryland as a volunteer with the nonprofit World Artists Experiences through a university service sabbatical with Project Pericles.
Based in Annapolis, World Artists Experiences invites international artists to the United States for shows, exhibits and performances. The group calls the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in the state capital its home, but volunteers make visits to locations across the state for several programs each year.
It’s also a charity with which Wheet has experience. Originally from Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Wheet worked with the nonprofit for years, though often for short periods when she visited home, first as a student and then employee of Elon.
“It’s important to touch base with the community. For me, it was great to bring international things to a different age group,” Wheet said in a recent interview from her office in the Isabella Cannon International Centre. “Sometimes we’re so busy with work and family that it’s hard to find time to fully give back to the community. It’s nice that Elon has this program.”
Wheet’s responsibilities in July were twofold: she organized children’s events with visitors from Austria, Estonia and Sri Lanka, and she helped build an area of the organization’s website.
Designing a web page was more time-consuming than she first imagined, Wheet said. She created a new area dedicated to international education, using online publishing platforms that will make it easier for volunteers to update the website.
“That’s why it was so great to take time off to help with this,” she said. “It was a way for me to do a bigger project for them that you can’t really do an hour here, an hour there.”
The experience introduced Wheet to a core group of volunteers that made the charity their “second or third” full-time job.
Project Pericles Service Sabbaticals are open to university employees who have been with Elon for two or more years. They allow staff to spend up to one month away from their normal duties to volunteer full time for a community organization.
“I applaud Kathryn for taking the initiative to do this service sabbatical and encourage other interested Elon staff to consider contacting me to discuss this program,” said professor Tom Arcaro, who directs Project Pericles at Elon.
Any full-time university employee who has a record of service to a community organization — and who has an idea of how his or her full-time service for one month will benefit that organization in a significant way — is welcome to apply.
“I knew Elon had given leave for staff members, but it’s not necessarily common knowledge,” said Wheet, who also earned an MBA through UNC Greensboro. “Part of the idea for me talking about this experience is to let others know of the opportunities out there.”
