When Utah’s Rebekah Winterton received an award during the Utah-Oregon football game a few weeks ago, she almost felt like she cheated the system.
The Utah Athletes in Service Award is an accolade that honors student-athletes for their volunteer work, but for Winterton, this has just been a way of life.
“If I hear about a service project going on, then I’ll participate in it,” she said. “When I was growing up, [service] wasn’t my favorite thing, but my dad would always go and shovel the sidewalks. One time, I was like, ‘I’ll come with you,’ and we came out and did it. For some reason, that clicked really well with me and kinda got me rolling on the service.”
When winter concluded and the snow disappeared, Winterton decided to put away the shovel, but not her passion to volunteer. Part of Winterton’s desire to serve the community has to do with the fact that she can never say “no.”
“If I’m asked to do something, I’ll do it,” Winterton said.
Winterton had a number of projects and services that she provided for the community to earn the award, but she put in the most time tutoring at the David Eccles School of Business.
The Utah native would go to the tutoring center two times a week for about three hours each session, helping any student that needed it. Winterton tutored mainly beginning courses, but the chance to help her fellow students was something she couldn’t turn down.
During her time as a tutor, Winterton had a regular visitor, and the connection that the two built together provided Winterton with a feeling that only comes from volunteer work.
“I would go over and be like, ‘Well, this is how I remember these things,’ ” Winterton said. “You know, teach him my train of thought, and he’d be like, ‘I get it!’ He’d get so excited and I’d be like, ‘Oh yes, I helped someone!’ ”
In addition to her selfless acts, Winterton also served as President of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council, where she led student-athletes to perform more service.
In her time as president, the student-athletes put together a service project called “Lunch for the Lunchless,” where a group of athletes would get together and make sack lunches with a sandwich, chips and a drink for people who could not afford a lunch.
In order to see the most success from this project, the goal for Winterton and company was to provide a large quantity of lunches with limited spending. Growing up, Winterton had a neighbor who had some sort of connection with getting loaves of bread. Her connection was able to get the group a rack of bread for just five dollars.
Winterton immediately ordered two racks of bread, with no idea how many loaves that would actually be.
“We ended up filling the whole back of my car and my trunk and the front seat, so it was packed to the ceiling with bread,” Winterton said.
For as much work as she put into the project, Winterton was unable to be there to hand out the lunches to people in need.
“I enjoyed it, but I wish I would have been able to finish,” Winterton said. “It’s hard not to see the results.”
While Winterton would seek out volunteer work, sometimes service opportunities spring up when you’re in search of experience. Such is the case with Utah women’s soccer team member Ashton Hall.
Hall, who also earned the Utah Athletes in Service Award, is a pre-med student who began volunteering while looking for something to share with medical school recruiters and advisers.
She started working in the emergency room of St. Marks Hospital filling vials and syringes and helping clean the rooms. Eventually that led to a job in the Moran Eye Center, where she examined the retinas of mice and did studies focused on specific ion channels.
Hall began to notice other opportunities around the community and realized how many people and organizations really needed help.
“I’ve learned a lot about myself, and I’ve also learned a lot about the Salt Lake community,” Hall said. “Because I’ve done so many different volunteer opportunities, I’ve had the opportunity to see the different places in our community that do need service.”
Not all of Hall’s service has been at a lab or a hospital. She has helped with soccer camps and is currently tutoring refugee kids in a community center.
“I’ve seen things like tutoring kids … all the way up to research labs,” Hall said. “I’ve been in the ER and seen how much help is needed there to keep the emergency room flowing and making sure people are getting in in a decent amount of time.”
During her service she has gained an understanding that communities need people to help out. She has realized that often a helping hand is needed in many parts of life, from assisting the more unfortunate to working in labs.
“I’ve learned a lot about the community’s general need for service, which I would assume is the case in any city,” she said.
In the end, Winterton and Hall don’t need to be recognized for their work within the community. The athletes have volunteered for quite some time and, according to Winterton, if everyone would provide a service when they can, the world would be a better place.
“I think that it would be good if everyone took a little bit of time out of their day to help others, because I think so many people get caught up in trying to get good grades and trying to do everything for themselves and they think they don’t have time for other people,” Winterton said. “What you realize is that when you start to make time for other people, then you’ll find yourself being happier which motivates you to do things better and get things done faster. So you end up having the same amount of time in the end, but you’re feeling so much better when taking that extra time.”
 
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