Students give back to the community

Number of volunteers for day of service continues to increase.

By Anna Koeppel

Published April 1, 2008

This Saturday, students can spend a day giving back to Columbia.

Caring for Columbia, a student group that organizes the day of service, has registered about 300 volunteers as of Monday, Tri-Director Jamie McCune said.

She expects that number to increase to 350 or 400 before the week’s end.

Volunteers will meet in Conservation Auditorium on Saturday morning for breakfast before splitting up to spend the day working on projects such as spending time with senior citizens or underprivileged youths, working at a food pantry or assisting students with special needs.

Project Coordination Committee Chairman Bryan VanGronigen said volunteers serve a diverse group of agencies.

“I’ve done this for three years, and it gets more diverse every year,” he said.

VanGronigen said due to the higher-than-usual number of volunteers, the committee will contact agencies this week to find out if they can offer more projects.

“There will be a place for everyone who volunteers for Caring for Columbia to go this Saturday,” VanGronigen said. “We hope.”

The group has received the sponsorship of several Columbia businesses whose donations will help feed the volunteers breakfast and lunch on Saturday.

McCune said Caring for Columbia is a good opportunity because it’s a one-day event for students with busy schedules to give back to the community.

“You’re here for four years,” she said. “Why not give back for one day a year?”

Though Caring for Columbia has held just one volunteer day a year since it started in 2004, McCune said the steering committee would like to increase that to one day per semester.

In addition, the committee would like to expand the event to include volunteers from the Columbia community, including high school students.

McCune said preparation for the event starts in September, when the group starts thinking of agencies they’d like to help and how they can improve the event.

McCune, a senior, said she became involved with Caring for Columbia her sophomore year, when she volunteered with Habitat for Humanity.

“This sounds cheesy, but it was how volunteering should be,” she said. “It felt so good afterwards.”

McCune said the group has started to achieve recognition among the agencies it serves.

“People are starting to realize who we are,” she said. “For the most part they’ve been very responsive.”

McCune said the volunteers include some students who will receive points towards their Greek Week totals for volunteering.

She said the steering committee will be finalizing plans for the event this week, but will welcome more volunteers.

Anyone wanting to volunteer Saturday can e-mail volunteer4c4c@hotmail.com with their name, cell phone number, e-mail address and T-shirt size.