Students Promoting Awareness, Responsibility and Citizenship (SPARC) helped to kick off SMU homecoming by organizing Community Service Day. Community Service Day has been a part of SMU for more than 15 years and SPARC has been in charge of the program for the past five years.

More than 320 students joined together Saturday morning to help better the Dallas community. Sororities, fraternities, cultural organizations and even individuals left SMU as early as 7:30 a.m. to begin volunteer work. The students represented 25 SMU organizations.

Students donated their time at Community Partners of Dallas, St. Vincent DePaul, Senior Net, The Dallas Zoo, three City of Dallas clean-up sites, For Love of the Lake clean up and at the Service House homeless shelter.

Buses took students to the various locations so they could volunteer for up to three hours. At the end of their service, students participated in a reflection to help address what they had encountered during the day.

Speaker Cici Gonzalez-Kurtz from St. Vincent DePaul greeted the students as they returned. She congratulated the students for their hard work and thanked them for their time.

Also, a buffet provided by SPARC awaited the students after their morning working in the Dallas community.

To prepare for the task at hand, SPARC held several executive meetings in addition to making posters, fliers and stake signs. Amy Ward, director of Community Service Day, planned the event from location sites to bus reservations.

SPARC’s purpose is to work as a team by volunteering. A common goal among members is to turn community service, which is often seen as a requirement or even a punishment, into something people want to do.

“SPARC allows students to have access to hands-on community service,” president Katie White said. “Community Service Day helps to facilitate knowledge that there is a lot more out there than what we see on campus.”

SPARC always welcomes new members, and the next meeting will be Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Hughes-Trigg Forum.