Service Saturdays big hit for students; expected to continue
The Center for Service Leadership offers more opportunities to serve through different Service Saturday activities every weekend.
This weekly tradition began last fall when Kelley Hardie, the assistant dean of students, identified a need on campus for weekend service projects.
After collecting data from the previous year, Hardie officially declared the first Service Saturday in the fall of 2015.
“When I transitioned into this position, the very first thing I wanted to do was collect data,” Hardie said. “Through that data collection, I discovered that students wanted to serve not just during the weekday but on the weekends as well.”
Before Service Saturdays, there were service projects offered on Saturdays through the Center for Service Leadership, but the data showed that more students were signing up for the weekend service projects than the space permitted.
Hardie’s solution to this overfill was to offer more than one service project on Saturdays.
At the beginning of last year, only one project was offered each weekend, but since then, the number has increased to two to five service projects each Saturday. These service opportunities vary with each Saturday to attempt to attract all students.
“I actively try to do something different every Saturday,” said Hardie. “The goal behind that is to target a different group of students on campus and off campus.”
Some of the projects this semester included work with the Greene County Alzheimer’s Awareness Walk in Carmichaels and the American Cancer Society Duck Drop Awareness Event at the Greene County Fairgrounds.
The logistics to each project, which includes a continental breakfast, transportation and communication with the service partner and the student site leader, are coordinated through the Center for Service Leadership Office.
Student site leaders are normally upperclassmen Bonner Scholars who are heavily involved with service, but Hardie makes it clear that it is not limited to Bonner Students.
“We usually try to find students who’ve either served at that site before or are familiar with that site or organization,” said Adrienne Tharpe, the Bonner coordinator. “It’s also given the Bonner Scholars opportunities to lead some of those projects and offer guidance at those sites.”
Despite the Center for Service Leadership efforts to increase the service opportunities available, the Service Saturday trips are filling up quickly and still run into the problem of not having enough space to cater to all the students interested in the projects.
“We’ve seen an increase in non-Bonners serving, which is fantastic and we want to see that,” said Tharpe.
Hardie agrees that students have embraced the concept but Hardie has more plans for what Service Saturdays can offer to students.
“I would really love to see more students coming forward with their areas of interest, but also working more with our faculty members to offer more academic focused Service Saturday opportunities,” said Hardie.
She encourages students to talk to the Center for Service Leadership Office about their areas of interests, academic or otherwise, because the Center for Service Leadership Office wants to provide students with trips to best fit their interests.
According to Hardie, Waynesburg University is built upon the importance of service, and that is why these service opportunities are available to students.
“Waynesburg University’s identity is service. As a Christian institution, the best servant leader example that we have is Jesus Christ,” she said. “And, how we model his behaviors and actions can be done by loving others. And that’s why these service projects are so important. Giving a few moments of our time can really make a huge impact on the lives of others and the community that we live in.”