Service Week 09: Service Day pumps almost $43,000 in service into the community
Kay McDowell |
More than 630 Lipscomb University students alongside 47 faculty and staff members donated 2,400 hours in service all over town, resulting in a $42,912* value contribution in service to the community.
Lipscomb University’s annual campus-wide Service Day has grown from 50 to more than 600 student volunteers in just seven years.
This year, the student, faculty and staff volunteers served at 43 schools and non-profit organizations, such as the American Cancer Society – Hope Lodge, Carestone Assisted Living, Feed America First, Healing Hands, Radnor Lake State Natural Area, Nashville Humane Society and the Nashville Rescue Mission. Students served at many of Nashville’s public schools including: Antioch Middle, Cole Elementary, Croft Middle and Goodlettsville Middle.
Community service is a campus priority at Lipscomb. Service Day is just one program created to give students a jump start into a life of service. Last fall Lipscomb students contributed 20,000 volunteer hours and this spring university officials predict students will contribute an additional 25,000 hours. For the 2008-09 academic year, Lipscomb students contributed more than $800,000 in service.*
Students volunteer through service club projects, as chapel credit electives, mission trips, Service Day and The SALT Program (Serving and Learning Together), a new program that involves all incoming students in service-learning as a graduation requirement.
Lipscomb University is listed as one of the top 25 “Programs to Look For” in service learning nationally in U.S. News & World Report’s “2009 America’s Best Colleges.”
The university is also listed on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction for exemplary service efforts. In only its second year on the honor roll, Lipscomb moved up from the Honor Roll category (with 546 schools) to the Honor Roll with Distinction category (withonly 83 schools). Only four universities in Tennessee are listed on the Honor Roll with Distinction.
The Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service learning and civic engagement.
*The estimated volunteerism value is calculated using a formula from the Independent Sector, a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of charities, foundations, and corporate philanthropy programs. Its mission is to advance the common good by leading, strengthening, and mobilizing the nonprofit community. Charitable organizations regularly use information from this organization to quantify the value volunteers provide. For more information: http://independentsector.org/programs/research/volunteer_time.html