“I was always one of those people that had everybody in crisis coming to me saying, ‘Help me fix it,’” Applebaum said.

As an East Lansing native, Applebaum began volunteering at the confidential and nonprofit center with a 24-hour crisis hotline when she was in high school.

Nine years later, Applebaum now serves as an in-service coordinator and a member of the training staff as she completes her degree at MSU.

“I can’t live without it,” she said. “When I moved away from here for undergrad, I never found my people again. It’s a unique breed of human that volunteers at a crisis center and donates four hours a week to helping other people.”

Although she completed her undergraduate degree at Central Michigan University, Applebaum said she commuted to volunteer on weekends during the semester.

The center, which also provides sexual assault and walk-in crisis counseling, is comprised completely of volunteers, the majority whom are MSU students completing a minimum of four-hour phone shifts per week.

“We get mostly psychology majors who have an ambition to become a therapist later in their life or pre-med students,” she said. “We have other majors interspersed in there, but mostly it’s people from helping fields.”

Volunteers must undergo intense training of about 65 hours before they begin their shifts. Applebaum said training mostly consists of breaking into small groups and learning skills people are unaware of, such as how to feel with another person and vicariously experience devastation without trying to remedy the problem.

“Our training is a ridiculous commitment, but I’ve had trainees say it’s the most life-changing experience they’ve had so far,” she said.

Patrick Sandoval, a psychology junior, first volunteered about three years ago and initially was trained by Applebaum.

“(Applebaum) is very good at what she does because she knows the technical aspects of training very well,” Sandoval said. “She knows the rationale behind what we do.”

Sandoval said the technical aspects of training are important for being able to give nonjudgmental feedback to volunteers and for growing to the extent of their abilities.

“It has given me an appreciation for what counseling is and what crisis intervention is,” he said. “That it is indeed something I want to pursue as a career.”

The center receives calls from all across the U.S. and listens to people who are dealing with a range of issues, including suicide, substance abuse, financial crises, sexual assault and relationship problems.

“We don’t give advice; we just help people explore where they are in that moment and try to de-escalate the intensity of their immediate negative experience,” Applebaum said.

One of the skills taught in training is how to feel less compelled to provide a solution to someone’s problem, she said.

“We’re there because we’re fix-it people, but you can’t fix it,” she said. “Ultimately, these people are responsible for their own actions and behaviors.”

Applebaum’s mother and East Lansing resident Eve Applebaum said the center has given her daughter a sense of camaraderie as she has watched mentoring relationships turn into friendships.

“Having gone through some rough times herself and in her family, she’s able to empathize,” she said. “Our whole family is kind of like that — we’re very pro-volunteerism.”

Although Whitney Applebaum said burnout from the crisis calls can be normal, but for her, volunteering isn’t about the phone calls.

“It’s about the people I work with,” she said. “There are truly caring, wonderful people in the world that are willing to dedicate their time and energy to helping other people and each other.”