NORTH CANTON, Ohio — Using its gardening expertise, the OSU Extension/Stark County Master Gardeners are here to help the community and its residents. The program is a volunteer program with lots of room to grow. Senior Corporate Communication students at Walsh University will be helping the Master Gardeners build its brand awareness through a service-learning project during spring semester.
This awareness will come through marketing campaigns, social media content and program development.
The Walsh students provide a wide range of skills that can help contribute to this cause including communications, marketing and graphic design abilities. Students will create posters, T-shirts, brochures/bookmarks, social media campaigns and an informational video. Students will also rebrand the master gardeners organization. The Master Gardeners’ rebranding process will include its logo, slogan and web design.
Plant. Grow. Eat. Repeat is a slogan the class created to give the program an updated phrase that could connect with more people in the community. This slogan will help reinforce the Master Gardeners mission to educate the community on their personal gardens.
“This project will help give me real world experience and apply it to my future career,” said senior Donal Baker. “Our team is excited to start working with the Master Gardeners program and helping them grow into the organization similar to other counties.”
“Although this is a challenge for us as students who are not very familiar with gardening, the strengths we have of reaching out to older generations through the use of technology and other platforms will help benefit our client,” said senior Carson Tillis.
“Service-Learning at Walsh is an experiential learning opportunity through which students can apply the concepts and knowledge they’re learning in their academic courses to meaningful community-based projects,” said Director of Service Learning Abigail Poeske. “They then can take the experiences they have working with local community partners and nonprofits and can bring that back to the classroom to make their learning really meaningful.”
“The Communications capstone course partnership with the OSU Extension/Stark County Master Gardeners program is a perfect example of this,” Poeske also said. “Students are utilizing their strengths and expertise from the past four years of communication coursework in order to help strengthen this community program.”
Walsh University is an independent, co-educational Catholic liberal arts and sciences institution that promotes academic excellence and diversity and provides close faculty-student interaction. It is dedicated to teaching its nearly 3,000 students from 30 states and 31 countries to become leaders in service to others through a values based education with an international perspective in the Judea-Christian tradition. www.walsh.edu.
Youtube Video: Walsh University Corporate Communication Partnership with OSU Extension/Stark County Master Gardeners’ Program.
— Walsh University