Jill Eaves knows what service means. For starters, she served our country in the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan in aircraft structural maintenance. After marrying her husband, whom she met in the Air Force, and later starting a family, she signed up to serve as a navigator in LaVetCorps, a program yielded by a partnership between the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs and AmeriCorps. Now, Jill serves as the point of contact at LSU Shreveport’s Veterans Resources Center for the nearly 500 student veterans and their family members who attend the university.

Like LSU Shreveport, 29 other public and private college and university campuses across Louisiana have student veteran centers. These centers are staffed by individuals who are committed to helping more than 8,000 student veterans successfully transition home from active military service to complete their college goals, and to live here in Louisiana and become leaders in their home towns. The campus centers are a place for veterans to study together, interact with other veterans and receive help with veterans’ benefits programs.

Aside from her outreach efforts with veterans, Jill has spearheaded some amazing projects including providing training and support to college faculty and staff. The Green Zone training, as she calls it, increases awareness of student veterans’ needs and veteran culture in efforts to help LSU Shreveport’s student veterans succeed and ultimately graduate.

In addition, Jill organized numerous community service projects benefitting both on and off campus veterans and makes regular connections with the university’s career center and local employers to help veterans seeking employment.

If you, or someone you know, would like to serve Louisiana’s student veterans, please email nikki.clark@la.gov or call 225.219.5518. An application is available here.

For more information about LDVA, visit vetaffairs.la.gov, email veteran@la.gov, call 225.219.5000 or follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.