Finalist
Jane Pope
Central Florida Community College
Sophomore in Journalism
3.45 GPA

The International Rotary Club’s motto is “Service Above Self,” and as both founding member and president of the Rotaract Club at Central Florida Community College, this seems to be Jane Pope’s motto for her own life as well. After working closely with a Rotary Club in her area, Pope, 19, started the Rotaract Club, a branch of Rotary for college students, at CFCC. “This wasn’t a club that she just wanted to ‘get on the books;’ she wanted to make a difference,” says Debbie Bowe, director of counseling and enrollment services at CFCC. “It’s another option for students interested in service. The club sells itself because people know what a good program Rotary is. It’s definitely impacted campus in a major way.”

Just how major of an impact has Pope and her club made? She’s led Rotaract to be one of the most—if not the most—prominent service club on campus, rivaling long-standing organizations such as Phi Theta Kappa, of which she’s also a member. Rotaract also has become highly visible in the community by working with all six local Rotary Clubs. “In less than three years, her hard work and dedication have made this club the second or third most visible club on campus, service organization or not,” says Dr. Donald Hunt, vice president of student affairs and Rotaract club sponsor.

In high school, Pope wanted to be active in community service, so she joined the Interact club, which was sponsored by Rotary. She was president of Interact for two years. “Before going to college, the Belleview Rotary club said, ‘Hey, there’s a college level of Rotary…would you be interested in starting one at CFCC?’” Pope says. “I love working with Rotary and the community, so I was really excited to start one on campus.” Those that work with Pope in other areas of campus are impressed with her efforts with Rotaract. “It’s hard enough to take over an existing student organization, but to help build one from scratch is quite an accomplishment,” says Richard Kirk, facilitator for the Honors Institute.

Some major Rotaract activities she’s led include fundraising for the Humane Society, working with Habitat for Humanity, an adopt-a-highway clean-up project, and organizing an Earth Day celebration.  “Rotary is international, but I was really trying to tie in local activities because a lot of times at bigger schools the Rotaract clubs mainly raise money for one big fund to send to Rotary International,” Pope says. “With Rotaract at CFCC, I tried to focus on the international aspect but also focus on local community activities and organizations to help out people around Marion County.”

Rotaract isn’t the only project where Pope and Hunt have been a winning team. They worked together to start the student volunteerism office, and as Student Volunteer Liaison, Pope has been the star player. Hunt wanted to start a program that would create a transcript of students’ volunteer hours that could be sent along with their transcripts to colleges or universities. “He explained his idea to me and told me to do whatever I wanted with it,” Pope says. “My first response was, ‘Okay, let’s make fliers; let’s get the word out,’ and it went from there.” As SVL, Pope’s responsibility is to notify students about the program and inform them what they can do to get their volunteer hours recorded in the school’s system. This system is open to all CFCC students and not restricted to students who volunteer through clubs. “I have a list of volunteer organizations, that way they can come to me if they want to volunteer and haven’t yet. I can get them in contact with the organization and help set up a time for them to volunteer,” she says.

Pope works for an hour and a half everyday putting volunteer hours into the transcript system. The other work she does is on her own time, when she makes fliers or speaks to her classes about the program. “Sometimes teachers offer extra credit for volunteering, so I’ll make sure I’ll tell students to, ‘Please come in and see me,’ so I can get them in touch with the right person,” she says. Hunt knows that Pope’s involvement is central in the success of this program. “She goes among the students, classes, clubs, and organizations,” he says. “She’s a very visible spokesperson for promoting student volunteerism.

Pope also coordinates the Volunteer Day(s) that CFCC hosts as part of her job as SVL. She gets the various volunteer organizations from campus to come out and set up booths and offers free food to the students, which is always a winning incentive as far as college students are concerned.  “I try to get the students to get to know the different groups and the different opportunities available to them if they want to volunteer,” she says. Pope says as SVL, she is in charge of just the event-planning, secretarial, and organization coordination side of the volunteer transcript program. Well, then what isn’t she in charge of? “He [Dr. Hunt] pretty much tells me what he wants, then lets me figure it out, and be creative, and do my own thing with it,” Pope says. “The program is word-of-mouth right now. We don’t have an official transcript sent when you request your college transcript, but we’re working on it!” For a program that just began this year, it seems that they are well on their way to success.

Pope’s effectiveness stems from her willingness to serve. “She’s a servant leader, and she doesn’t even seem to know it,” Hunt says. “She considers the good of the whole and is willing to sacrifice herself.” It seems Pope has the natural ability to put others first without even giving it a second thought. “She truly exemplifies the servant leader philosophy, making sure that individual feelings are taken into consideration as she leads others,” he says. “For Janie, the ultimate goal is seeing that a job is done well. It seems to make little difference who gets the credit as long as the task is a success.”

“I try to take the positive side toward every situation, and I also lead by example. I try not ask anything of anyone that I wouldn’t do myself,” Pope says. “I wouldn’t feel right if I had an event or activity and asked people do things for me but didn’t participate myself.” The similarity between how Pope described herself and how others described her was uncanny. “She’s always up to any task that she sets her mind to, and she would never ask someone else to do a job that she wouldn’t do herself,” Kirk says. Sound familiar?

“With Janie, what you see is what you get, which is pretty darn polished and good,” says Bowe. Maybe this is why people describe Pope in such a similar way. “Enthusiastic,” “charismatic,” “consensus builder,” and “sensitive” are all terms that’ve been used to describe Pope. It seems she’s void of any agendas or power games, except for the agenda to serve others and to bring the power of service to her community. “She’s unique as far as student leaders go,” Hunt says. “She has a burning zeal to serve her community and her school, and that’s very special.”

Pope thinks the most important thing to do is reach out to other people. Born and raised in Ocala, her family’s been native to the area for many generations. She cites this among just one of the reason that she feels a special bond to her community. “I love Ocala, the people at CFCC, and everyone in Marion County,” Pope says.  “My favorite quote is, ‘If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.’” That certainly seems to be the principle that she lives by. “People’s expression when you’re able to help is better than money or anything else,” she says. “I guess it might be considered selfish because it’s so rewarding. I really think it’s important to reach out and help others because it’ll all come back to you in the end.”

Whether she wants the recognition or not, she gets it in the form of scholarships and honors. Most recently, Pope—sponsored by Rotaract—competed for the title of “Ms. CFCC.” “It was great knowing that everybody from faculty and staff supported me,” Pope says. “I had so many friends competing against me, and they were all so supportive, too.” Pope ended up winning this prestigious honor, which was accompanied by a $1,000 scholarship. And what did she find most exciting about receiving this award? “It was a tremendous honor, but I was even happier that I was able to represent Rotaract and move a step closer to making a name for ourselves,” she says. “Hopefully, I can use this and act as a spokesperson for the college. I really encourage people to come to CFCC because they’ve done so much for me.” She hopes to use her title as Ms. CFCC to reach out to high school students in the area. So far, as Ms. CFCC, she’s attended CFCC’s alumni association meetings in order to contribute student input, sat in on board of trustees meetings, and has spoken at high school preview days to encourage students to get involved in activities and tell them about scholarship opportunities.

Besides all her work with Rotaract and being an active member of PTK, Pope’s been involved with the Student Activities Board since her first year at CFCC when she applied for a position as their special events chair. “Basically, I’m the contact person and organizer of all the special events put on by SAB on campus, from homecoming week to welcome week,” she says. Pope doesn’t limit herself to just the events planning side of SAB. She also is active with the service and governmental issues boards, to name a few. “Ms. Pope has always been the one that I, as the advisor, can count on, and I’ve come to depend on her greatly,” says Roy Lightfoot, SAB advisor. “She’s willing to help with all the activities that SAB performs and is definitely committed to the success of any program in which she becomes involved. Without her on SAB, there’d be things that simply didn’t get done.”

“She has it. I always believe that people have it or they don’t, and she just came to us having it,” Bowe says. “She tries to bring out the goodness in people. I think that’s something you can’t learn. Either you have it, or you don’t.” Besides an unrelenting desire to serve, Pope is constantly praised for her high morals and unyielding integrity. “She has deeply rooted values of service and leadership dignity to her fellow man,” Hunt says. Many other faculty members that Pope works with share this sentiment. “She has these amazing good morals and values, but she doesn’t have an air about herself,” Bowe says. “She makes everyone feel welcome, and she’s warm to all walks of life.”

Pope hopes to leave her values and dedication to service as a legacy to CFCC. “I’m really just trying to promote volunteerism and stress to the students how important it is, so hopefully, when I leave, I’ll have made an impact somewhere,” she says. “I hope I built Rotaract in such a way so that it can continue and thrive.” Leaving for Pope is coming sooner than she might hope. She plans to transfer to either the University of Florida or the University of Central Florida this coming fall and get her bachelor’s degree in communication. And she plans to keep up her involvement at whichever school she attends. “I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll take it easy and just be a normal student.’ But it’s contagious. I can’t help but be involved,” Pope says. She plans to get involved with Student Government, homecoming, and Rotaract, for starters.

Pope’s education is funded by scholarships, including Florida Bright Futures and CFCC Honors scholarships. She also works two jobs, one at Sears and the other as a student assistant for enrollment services at CFCC. Currently, her costs are kept low due to the fact that she lives at home. She plans to take on more work hours to support herself at the university level.

Pope sees leadership having a strong role in her life in the long-term as well. “I hope to give back to the community, CFCC, and the Rotary club for all they’ve done for me and to become a Rotarian myself,” she says. She plans to minor in Political Science and to one day give back to the community even more by running for office. -RM

Contact Pope at janiep03@msn.com.