Learning and Giving Back: Community Outreach Committee

By Livi King

Sometimes in college, it can feel like there are little to no opportunities to create work for a public relations portfolio. I’m here to tell you that if you feel like that, you should check out the PRSSA Community Outreach Committee. During the 2025-2026 school year, our committee worked with two community partners: a student organization known as Red Rook Press and a local art nonprofit, Kentuck Arts Center. These clients provided students the opportunity to gain real-world experience through PR hands-on learning opportunities.

Red Rook Press

Red Rook Press, a student-run publishing house at The University of Alabama, approached us with two key challenges: recruiting more students interested in web design and audio roles and increasing submissions to its newest department, “Special Projects.” The editor in chief of Red Rook Press communicated a desire to extend outreach to other universities to attract more student authors.

Design by Community Outreach Committee

This partnership was a fantastic match for the Community Outreach Committee. Because each committee member could choose from a variety of projects to work on, everyone had the opportunity to strengthen a PR skill they aimed to improve. 

Students interested in improving research skills compiled a contact sheet for Red Rook Press to utilize in their outreach efforts. A separate team of students interested in enhancing their design skills created digital promotional content for Red Rook Press. These designs ranged in format, including temporary story posts, permanent carousel posts and poster designs for digital signage across the UA campus. 

Designed by Community Outreach Committee

Ultimately, the work created by the committee was valuable in garnering attention from not only students at UA, but other colleges as well. For those on the committee, this project provided opportunities for an array of work requiring a variety of applied PR skills. This created a plethora of opportunities for committee members to practice working for a client on projects similar to what they would create in the industry. For those on the committee, this project provided opportunities to develop professional deliverables for a real client, while also honing their skills.

Kentuck Arts Center

The second community partner, Kentuck Arts Center, had a more concise project for the Community Outreach Committee: Kentuck asked our chapter to help boost awareness of their programs and services targeted at parents of young children in the Tuscaloosa and Northport area.

Designed by Community Outreach Committee

The summer before the Fall 2025 semester, our chapter worked directly with Kentuck's director of marketing and communications to write a press release covering the children's workshops offered by the organizations. The press release was successfully published by three media outlets, garnering more attention for the workshops offered by Kentuck Arts Center going into the fall season.

Much like the Red Rook Press project, our chapter provided a collection of research and design-based deliverables to aid these goals. The deliverables provided for Kentuck boosted local awareness of their services, allowing more families from a range of household incomes to have access to early childhood arts education. 

Both community partners presented our chapter with opportunities to practice working with real-world clients. Committee members learned how to properly adhere to a brand kit as well as how to better utilize software like Adobe InDesign or Microsoft Excel to meet client needs. 

Fundamental best practices for conducting PR work were also refreshed while working on the committee. This is incredibly important for the development of any aspiring PR professional. Remembering layout rules when developing design work or refreshing and utilizing research skills taught in an introductory course are all part of working and learning on the Community Outreach Committee. To get involved with the Community Outreach Committee, click here to fill out our interest form.