Painting faces, washing windows and building houses are just a few of the opportunities that SMU students will have to participate in on Community Service Day, Saturday.
Coordinated by the Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts office, 17 student organizations and four groups of individuals will step outside of the SMU campus to help better the Dallas community through public service and beautify the SMU campus for this day held each semester.
Community Service Day Chairwoman Shanjana Mahmud said it is a great way to get students on campus involved in improving the community.
“Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts has a small number of volunteers that come consistently to the weekly service projects,” Mahmud said. “I hope that after participating in Community Service Day more people will be willing to come on a regular basis.”
After two months of planning and contacting area agencies, MOVE will be taking its volunteers to 18 sites, two of which will aide SMU.Students will visit a variety of organizations like Steps to Success where students will have the opportunity to mentor Dallas Independent School District high school students. Other organizations receiving aide include Habitat for Humanity where the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. and Sigma Chi fraternity will volunteer.
“Our sorority was founded on community service so having the opportunity to help low-income families have their own homes is a great opportunity and something that we are fortunate to be able to do,” said Marie Anderson, AKA treasurer.
The Theta Tau engineering fraternity will help the Charities Home Center and the Baptist Student Association will aid Senior Citizens of Greater Dallas.With 180 volunteers participating divided among 18 agencies, this semester’s participation is better on the part of students and the agencies than last Spring. But as Mahmud says every semester is different and MOVE does the best that it can.
“Our emphasis this year is on groups participating in the volunteer effort. This way students can mingle with each other and learn about each other while they serve the community,” Mahmud said.
The Department of Multicultural Student Affairs has taken this challenge head on for service day. Meron Negash, vice president of the Association of Black Students, says that it, along with the 14 other minority-based organizations operating through the department office, will join together to clean and beautify SMU’s campus and bring students from DISD to participate in the service as well.
“We wanted a chance, not only to participate in Community Service Day, but to allow area youth to participate as well. We hope that by them coming to campus they can see the school, talk with students and begin thinking about decisions that they will soon be making about their future,” Negash said.
The Department of Multicultural Student Affairs hopes to bring together all of its organizations. This way, people will feel comfortable working in a diverse atmosphere.
But while some are mentoring, others will be painting children’s faces and manning activity booths at the YWCA “Family Fun Day.”
Mahmud says she wants people to know that every volunteer agency is different, and that each one has its own significant need, whatever the tasks may be.
“Being able to send out so many people at the same time is great, and it means that people can get a lot of work done in less time,” Mahmud said.
