Battle Creek Woman Gets Service Award at Olivet College

Talk about getting the most out of your college experience!    Battle Creek's Sydnie Weller has done that and then some in her time at Olivet College.  She's taken advantage of opportunities to travel in service to other countries though Olivet-sponsored programs.  As a result, Sydnie Weller is the latest Olivet College student to receive the College Leadership in Service Award.

Each year, the award honors a graduating senior who has been "an exemplary model of putting the needs of others before themselves".  A release from Olivet College said the annual recipient demonstrates a strong commitment to service and service learning involving a serious and significant amount of time and physical work while often living in challenging conditions. The vast majority of service experiences involve extensive travel in cramped vans over weekends, holidays and Spring Break. While the rewards are many, this work is certainly not for the faint of heart.

The school says Sydnie Weller has been on almost every different type of service trip the College offers over her four years at Olivet. Most recently, she went on the Alternative Spring Break trip to Florida where a group of students replaced hurricane damaged roofs, and most significantly, she went on the College’s first disaster relief trip to Puerto Rico. That two-week trip in May 2018 through All Hands and Hearts Volunteers involved roof repair in rural areas of the island while living in military-style barracks with no air conditioning and no hot water. Not only did Sydnie work hard, she never complained about our sparse living conditions and made the best of a difficult situation.

In addition to her significant work in service, Sydnie is an excellent student as an insurance and risk management major, and she was also named Risk Management and Insurance Student of the Year. She has completed two successful internships at insurance agencies and earned the University Associate Certified Insurance Counselor (UACIC) professional designation. She also experienced European insurance market operations in London and Dublin, as well as business processes in Antigua during two different study abroad opportunities. Further, Sydnie was a member of Gamma Iota Sigma, the College’s professional insurance and risk management fraternity, where she served as the organization’s vice president of diversity and inclusion.  Sydnie was also a varsity member of the women’s tennis team.