Connect with community — Saturday of Service gives students volunteer opportunities across Moscow

Behind a glass window of the Moscow Hope Center, wearing a Vandal hat and glasses, Gregory Beck sits still.

Staring out the window with a slight grin on his face, he clutches a sign that reads, “20 percent off all clothes and accessories.”

Just for today, Beck gets to be a mannequin.

This is one of the many opportunities students were given while volunteering during the Saturday of Service event.

“It’s so fun,” Beck said. “Lots of people are smilin’ and grinnin’ and havin’ a good time. I think it’s just kind of fostering a good celebratory atmosphere because it’s a celebration with the Hope Center … It’s a party.”

Beck, who is part of the Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship, said the group took advantage of the Saturday of Service opportunity because they wanted to help the community.

“We just wanted to be able to do something to give back to the community,” Beck said. “This is such an awesome opportunity, because the university has already set up so much of it that makes it so easy for us to jump in and serve. It was a no brainer.”

Not only did students pose as mannequins to help advertise sales for the Hope Center, they also helped sort clothes and assist customers.

For students like senior Mayra Deleon and sophomore Denessy Rodriguez, Saturday of Service helped them connect with their previous Alternative Service Break (ASB) memories and reunite with one another.

“We kind of missed going out and doing work,” Rodriguez said. “And it’s good to just give back to our community.”

For other students participating in Saturday of Service, like members of the UI Humanitarian and Engineering Corps (HEC), not even rain stopped them from giving back to businesses on the Palouse.

Members of HEC worked with the Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute (PCEI) to reconstruct hiking trails.

Environmental Education Specialist and AmeriCorps member Kyle O’Keefe said there is about one mile of walking and hiking trails open to the public at PCEI, which were torn up after the rough winter.

“Having access to these trails is really important,” O’Keefe said.

The purpose of Saturday of Service at this location was to help bring the trails back to life so they will be accessible to Moscow community members.

Senior Catherine Feistner, who is also a member of HEC, said it’s important to get the university involved in the community and help give back to them.

“We’re the HEC, so we’re just trying to make things better in our community as well as in other communities,” Feistner said.

HEC members connected what they learn in class to their service work. Senior Monica Erickson said UI offers a class to students which teaches humanitarian engineering.

“Some of the things here are some of the things we’ve learned about in class,” Erickson said.

Another group, which included UI students who participated in ASB trips, volunteered at the Moscow Charter School. There, they helped pick weeds around the school and swept the area.

Because the ASUI Center for Volunteerism and Social Action works to put on the ASB trips, junior Catherine Yenne said it’s important to help them and help give back to the community. “It’s super easy for UI students to get stuck in that UI bubble, you know, they don’t really leave campus or A Street and stuff like that,” Yenne said. “Here, we are way outside of the UI campus so it’s an opportunity for us to see that Moscow is a community outside of UI.”

Savannah Cardon can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @savannahlcardon