Montana State student Hadley Barbie wins statewide volunteering award

BOZEMAN - A Montana State University sophomore has been recognized for her civic engagement through a volunteering award from the governor's office.

This spring, Hadley Barbie, a nursing student at MSU, received the Montana Student Volunteer Award, which is sponsored by the governor's Office of Community Service and Montana Campus Network for Civic Engagement.

Barbie is from Cut Bank and part of the Hilleman Scholars Program, which provides financial assistance to students from Montana who demonstrate leadership potential. Her family is full of proud Bobcat alums, including her mom, grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin. Now having completed her prerequisite courses on the Bozeman campus, Barbie will continue her nursing education this fall at the MSU nursing campus in Great Falls.

During her two years in Bozeman, Barbie has made a remarkable impact, said Kim Cleary, the Office of Student Engagement's civic and community engagement program manager. Barbie interned with OSE as the Service Saturday coordinator, and Cleary, her boss, nominated her for the award.

"Hadley has been such a joy to work with this past year," Cleary said. "She helped provide hundreds of her fellow MSU students with opportunities to get out and give back. I am so proud of the growth I've seen in Hadley and the impact she had on the culture of service here at MSU."

Barbie's job entailed coordinating monthly volunteer opportunities for students during the school year that were each attended by 10 to 15 students. She has helped connect MSU students with volunteer opportunities at Hopa Mountain, the Downtown Bozeman Association and Sacks Thrift Store, among other nonprofits.

One standout project was a partnership between Trio Student Support Services and MSU groundskeepers for an Earth Day campus cleanup of trash and litter.

"It was so rewarding to be able to organize it, and then have students come back and be like, 'I learned so much, I had such a fun time.' Just talking about their experience and how much they enjoyed it," Barbie said. "And then also seeing some of those faces come back to the next Service Saturday, and they're excited to go volunteer again."

Barbie was also pivotal in securing MSU's win against the University of Montana in the 2024 food drive Can the Griz. She called many local grocery stores to help them set up donation boxes and said it was challenging to put herself out there in that way.

"I think the most stressful part of the majority of service projects is just waiting for people to get back to you and hoping that they are available and wanting to partner with you," Barbie said. "I am definitely still working to build my communication skills. And there are other people in the Office of Student Engagement who are just wonderful, and they communicate so well and I'm just like, I want to be like you.

"I have learned a lot about myself and grown within my leadership abilities as an individual," Barbie said. "It was definitely a step up in responsibility compared to the projects I had done with other organizations in high school. I also think I learned a lot about how to communicate."

Outside of OSE, Barbie is involved in the professional agricultural sorority Sigma Alpha, where she engages in the Ag in the Classroom program to get young children excited about agriculture. She also belongs to the MSU Collegiate Stockgrowers chapter and does additional agricultural outreach with them.

Barbie's agricultural background extends to her heavy involvement in 4-H growing up. She helped renovated the dog arena at her county fairgrounds and was also involved in the Clover Buds program that helped introduce younger kids to 4-H.

Outside of school, Barbie is close to her family and is excited to be nearer to them when she moves to Great Falls. Her typical weekend is spent in Helena watching her brother play football for Carroll College.

Barbie's advice to other students interested in volunteering is to make the leap and get involved - knowing that you likely won't have to go at it alone.

She also recommends programs like Service Saturday through OSE, where students simply need to show up ready to volunteer without having to coordinate anything.

"There are so many other people within your community that want to serve and help you accomplish whatever goal," Barbie said. "If you want to make a change, look at what other groups are doing, because somebody might already be trying something similar. It doesn't necessarily have to be just all you."