First-Year Students Reach Out to the Community

University 101 students experience the opportunity to participate in diverse charitable projects, while working with professors to contribute to the local community. Activities ranged from a bake sale to a fundraiser. For instance, Aurelie Capron’s class headed a blanketmaking project for youth patients in a local area hospital and Neil Quisenberry’s class also made blankets for Project Linus, in which various chapters donate blankets to children who are critically ill or traumatized. Rick Bonsall’s class wrote letters to U.S. soldiers and made cards, banners and handmade items to distribute overseas.

Some additional projects included: holding a Stray Rescue pet supply drive; a bake sale for Village Health Works; a bone marrow donor registry drive; a food drive for Lebanon St. John’s Church food pantry; selling bracelets for a Bearcat football player who has cancer; volunteering at Cedar Ridge Nursing Home; making Halloween cards to send to a local retirement center; and collecting money for Project Mosquito Net and Nothing But Nets, which donate mosquito nets to endangered African children to help stop the spread of malaria.

First-year students were exposed to a wide variety of projects both within the local surrounding community and global areas, through gaining optimistic experiences, while learning more about themselves. “Dr. Collins and I have been in awe of our University 101 colleagues’ unique and thoughtful service projects which benefited the local community as well as our global friends in Africa,” said Darryn Diuguid, assistant professor of education. “McKendree University should be proud of the 23 sections of 101 which provided over 1,500 community service hours this semester.”