Colin Zimmer
Volunteer Spreading Cheer
The holiday season is special for Colin Zimmer, a senior studying business management with a double minor in psychology and social entrepreneurship. Each December, he dons an elf costume and hands out candy canes, earning him a special nickname—the UTK Elf. “My goal as the UTK Elf is simply to spread joy and make people smile,” says Zimmer, who gave away 18,000 treats across campus and downtown Knoxville last year. “I want to reach as many people as possible.” Zimmer’s efforts to spread joy gained social media attention when his fellow students—and the university social media team—posted about his elf persona.
The UTK Elf is just one expression of Zimmer’s heart for helping others. As a high school student in Marietta, Georgia, he joined a local chapter of Sources of Strength, a youth mental health promotion and suicide prevention program. “It gave me community and people who supported me,” he says. “Positive friends came into my life, including mentors who built me up, and I grew some leadership skills.” When Zimmer came to UT, he launched the campus’s first chapter of Sources of Strength. Leading the group over the past three years has earned him firsthand experience and numerous rewards. “People see us at events and thank us for what we do,” he says. “While it’s still a small group, I’ve learned you don’t need many people to do a lot of good. You just need passion behind it.”
Beyond his work with Sources of Strength, Zimmer also has contributed more than 500 hours of service through various volunteer efforts. He led an Ignite team, led and participated in the VOLBreaks service program, supported the homeless community through AmeriCorps and a city internship, volunteered at a local science museum, and currently serves as student service director for the Jones Center of Leadership. With this breadth of experience, Zimmer is positioned for success in nonprofit management, the field he’s interested in joining after graduation. In the meantime, he works part-time with AmeriCorps as the area’s youth homeless system improvement coordinator.
Zimmer dreams of working for Sources of Strength at the national management level and eventually starting his own nonprofit organization. As he prepares to graduate, he is happy to leave a legacy that goes beyond the UTK Elf—caring for people’s mental health. “Volunteering can change your life,” he says. “It’s certainly changed mine.”
