Student Veterans Organization Seeks SGA's Help To Send 50 Vets To Career Conference


(Source: DVIDSHUB via Flickr)

The Student Veterans Organization (SVO) at UT-Tyler approached student government Wednesday to "open a discussion" on how student organizations can do more fundraising on campus.

"Just as far as student groups being able to raise funds, I think it is something we should looking into," SVO representative Jack Kasino told the assembly.

Kasino said his chapter would like to send as many student veterans as possible to his organization’s national conference in Orlando, FL on Jan. 3-5.

Kasino said the total cost to attendees is roughly $1,500 and university limitations regarding on-campus fundraising make it difficult for student organizations to fundraise on-campus.

Currently, a university rule prohibits registered student organizations from fundraising for any organization is not a recognized 501(c)(3) entity. Many student organizations do not have tax-exempt status and therefore cannot raise funds for themselves on UT-Tyler’s campus.

The national conference, or “NatCon”, hosts an annual career success conference, similar to UT-Tyler’s recent event, but specifically designed to employ veterans.

According to the national organization’s website, the Student Veterans of America's national conference networks student veterans and employers who want to hire veterans through meet-n-greets and career fair-like gathering.

The upcoming conference has over 25 corporate sponsors including Apple, Google, Wells Fargo, and boasts of past speakers such as former U.S. President George W. Bush and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

Though the total cost is roughly $1,500, the maximum amount registered organizations may receive from student government is $500 per semester.

"I know full well that asking the school for funds is not always the best way to go," Kasino told The Student Government Association (SGA).

"In the past, we’ve been lucky enough for the school to sponsor one or two students, which has been outstanding. I was lucky enough to be one of those students, but with something like 400 veterans on campus, we should be sending 50, especially with the opportunity available," he said.

If student veterans can attend this networking opportunity to help student veterans find employment, Kasino believe it will add value to their UT-Tyler degree.

“The more people who get employment, the more value our degrees have,” he said.

The SVO representative said his UT-Tyler chapter saw little success when it tried to fundraise in the past through creating awareness. He said the group sent a mass email to all students, placed advertisements in the student newspaper and on television, but saw little success.

Kasino hopes speaking to SGA will help open the conversation to potentially amending the school's policy and allowing student veterans more opportunity to attend this career fair conference.

SGA REACTION

Sen. Robert Camarillo (Soules College of Business) offered SVO his advice as a member of Greek fraternity Delta Sigma Phi, which has done fundraising in the past.

He said his fraternity's fundraisers at Panda Express Chinese Restaurant (Panda Express) and Chipotle Mexican Grill (Chipotle) restaurants have been successful.

According to their websites, approved groups drive traffic to their restaurant and the business gives groups a percentage of the sales for the duration of the fundraiser. Chipotle offers 33 percent of sales and Panda Express offers 20 percent of sales.

Sen. Caleb Morrison (Student Body at Large) told Kasino that the best way SGA can help student organizations like SVO is for the group to bring a specific policy change to the assembly that it would like to change that would help its cause.

In this way, senators could potentially write a formal resolution to UT-Tyler administration to advocate for the change, he said.

Kasino thanked the assembly for listening and left his contact card at Sen. Jimmy Counihan’s (Liberty Landing) request for interested senators to contact him with further interest.

SGA took no action during the meeting about this issue and made no future plans to do so. It appeared Kasino may take members' advice and return to student government in the future if he chooses.

The Student Veterans Organizations is on Twitter at @UtSVO and available through email at studentveterans@patriots.uttyler.edu, according to UT-Tyler’s student organization website.

BLOG REACTION

I think this is great and for all that veterans do to stay in between us and bad guys, we in the community should do whatever we can to help veterans succeed in the workforce.

Twitter: @jhescock

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