Build relationships. Build confidence. Build character.

According to Education Partnerships, Inc., these are just a few of the many benefits associated with participating in extracurricular activities at any stage in one’s schooling.  

One of the longest running programs under the ExerCYse is Medicine organization is the Ames Community Preschool Center, which hosts ISU student ambassadors to run an extracurricular exercise program for children. The ExerCYse is Medicine organization is run by Gregory Welk, professor of kinesiology

Commonly referred to as “special gym time” by the kids, ISU ambassadors have the opportunity to work with children to improve many of their fundamental skills gained early in life every Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m.

“Every week, three to four ExerCYse ambassadors go to the Ames Community Preschool [Center] where they lead fitness related games with the pre-schoolers,” said Audrianne Freeman, youth committee leader and senior in kinesiology and health. “These games and activities are focused on different developmental aspects in kids, such as balance, motor control and cardiorespiratory fitness.”

Each session is structured how it will best benefit the children, which is split into three different parts.

“We have four different groups of around 10 to 15 children and have each group for 30 minutes,” said Amy Stiehl, youth committee leader and senior in kinesiology and health. “We typically start out with a warm-up, then play a couple different games and end with a cool-down.”

Freeman said that the program would like to gain more volunteers so that they can begin to go to the preschool center more than once a week to work with the kids.

“Our goal is simply to show kids that exercise is a ton of fun and help them begin to create habits that will last a lifetime,” Freeman said. “Ideally, we want all of their kids to have ‘special gym time’ every week.”

Aside from the benefits gained from working with children, the preschool center program and other ExerCYse is Medicine programs allow ISU students to track their volunteer service in the form of hours and number of events with a program called “Givepulse”.

“This program will allow students to have something tangible to show a future employer or to put with a graduate school application,” said Joey Lee, graduate teaching assistant involved with the ExerCYse is Medicine program. “It tracks what it calls your ‘impact’ over time and provides cool ways of looking at how your volunteer time benefitted the community. [For example], it may say something like, ‘You’ve saved your community $1,157 tax payer dollars.’ It’s a cool way to actually get credit for volunteering and to track it over time.”

To get involved with preschool center and other programs, students can visit the ExerCYse website at www.exercyse.org/ambassadors.html. Once signed up to be an ambassador, students can create an account on Givepulse to start tracking their volunteer impact.