The Arkansas SHIIP Student Volunteer Program began in 2008 with ten participating schools and 164 students from EAST and FBLA programs. These programs used the Student Volunteer Program as a community service project. SHIIP counselors went to each school and trained the student volunteers and their sponsors/facilitators to navigate the Medicare.gov Web site in order to enable them to find and compare Medicare prescription drug plans for the Medicare beneficiaries in their communities. Each school held a Medicare Open Enrollment Event between November 15 and December 31.

    The Arkansas SHIIP placed advertisements in the participating school's local newspapers and helped each with their events. The program was a huge success and was very much appreciated by the communities. Now, we have 470 students at eleven schools signed up to participate in 2009. We expect many more schools will want to participate as the word spreads. We welcome any Arkansas school participation. If you have a program looking for a successful community service project for the coming school year, please call the Arkansas SHIIP at  (800) 224-6330 or (501) 371-2782, or email us at insurance.SHIIP@arkansas.gov.