Objective To investigate the benefits and challenges of medical student volunteers'involvement in community diabetes education and to provide evidence for future development and suggestions.Methods Self-made questionnaire survey and interview were conducted among members of community health education volunteer in Southeast University.Data concerning basic group composition,major service contents,intention and gain,sources of motivation,knowledge acquisition and skill training were analyzed.Results 88.t04％ volunteers chose professional work as the kind of work they were most interested in,in contrast,69.56％ did nonprofessional work in reality.Initial intention of 66.30％ volunteers was ‘to beautify curriculum vitae'.‘Morality promotion' was taken as major gain by most volunteers (36.96％) while ‘morality promotion' was the initial intention of only 4.89％ volunteers.46.20％volunteers thought that their sources of motivation came from ‘ recognition of society and university'.Through training and voluntary service,it was evident that volunteers gained increased diabetes knowledge,stronger professional identity and confidence as well as deeper understanding of patients' needs,but there were real demand for training in education and clinical skills.Conclusions The introduction of medical student voluntary service into community diabetes education is a win-win cooperation,which can cultivate college students' high morality as well as strengthen the community health education team.However,we still face challenges in volunteer team building and management.