For students striving to help the Moscow community and get involved in University of Idaho volunteer work, Saturday of Service is the event to attend.
The ASUI Center for Volunteerism and Social Action gives individuals the opportunity to reach out and help local community partners around the Palouse through the program.
“Saturday of Service is basically just a day of service that we provide for students on campus to volunteer in the community,” Days of Service Coordinator for the Volunteer Center Allie Schumacker said.
From 9 a.m. to noon April 8, students will join together to help better the community through volunteer work and assistance. Whether it be yard work or organizing books at the local library, students will have a variety of opportunities, Schumacker said.
“We partner with people in the community and we try to have students from all over campus participate,” Schumacker said. “Either if they’re just individually participating, in Greek life, or clubs and groups or really anything like that.”
Lead Local Service Coordinator at the Volunteer Center Anna Dolezal said the center works to reach out to student and living groups around campus who might be interested in volunteering.
This year, Saturday of Service is partnering with different businesses around Moscow including the Latah County Library, School Districts, Parks and Recreation and more, Schumacker said.
The Volunteer Center contacts community partners in Moscow to see what help they might need, Dolezal said. With feedback from community members who need volunteers, the center designates what they can do to assist them.
Dolezal said because Saturday of Service is in the spring, there are many of new projects that come up because of the warm weather.
“There’s a lot of cool stuff happening, especially with environment and sustainability, and so Saturday of Service is a really cool way for people to get involved in those organizations,” Dolezal said.
Schumacker said the event begins in the International Ballroom of the Bruce Pitman Center, where volunteers are provided with free breakfast and T-shirts. Students and groups are then assigned their job and taken to their volunteer location by a site leader.
Dolezal said the Volunteer Center works to help students find local organizations who need volunteers, and help connect them.
“I hope that community members can have positive interactions with university students … It’s just a way to foster that relationship between the community and the university,” Dolezal said.
The ultimate goal of Saturday of Service is that individuals find organizations they hadn’t known about before and return to them to volunteer more, Dolezal said.
“If someone walked away from Saturday of Service with a relationship with that community partner, and would go back and volunteer with them, that is the absolute dream,” Dolezal said. “That is what we’re hoping for.”
Schumacker said Saturday of Service also helps students gain experiences within the community.
“I feel like this is really important just so they (community members) can see that students are here for so many different reasons,” Schumacker said. “On campus, we want to do more than just educate students in the books and things like that. We want to give them real-world experiences and help out our community as much as we can.”
Savannah Cardon can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @savannahlcardon