Virginia Tech
PAE-22: Community Service Participation

The President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll defines community service as: "Activities designed to improve the quality of life of off-campus community residents, particularly low-income individuals. Community service activities may include but are not limited to: academic service learning, co-curricular service learning (not part of an academic course, but utilizing service-learning elements) and other co-curricular student volunteer activities, as well as Work-Study community service and paid community service internships. Community service includes both direct service to citizens (e.g., serving food to the needy) and indirect service (e.g., assessing community nutrition needs or managing a food bank)."

For more information please see: http://www.learnandserve.gov/about/programs/higher_ed_honorroll.asp

In 2011-2012, more than 16,499 Virginia Tech students participated in forms of community service other than academic service-learning. Adding in 3,149 students for academic service-learning and the total amounts to 19,648 students.

Virginia Tech offers many programs that embody the universities motto, Ut Prosim. That I May Serve. Between service learning courses and our student’s motivation to serve our communities, Virginia Tech has several programs that deserve mention.

The Coalition for Refugee Resettlement (CRR) was founded in 2006 in response to the influx of Somali Bantu refugees into the United States. Since its inception the coalition has provided cross-generational educational programs for families at public housing sites in cooperation with Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority. Programming includes adult ESL, in-home tutoring, and citizenship preparation classes. The CRR is a signature program of VT Engage: The Community Learning Collaborative, which hosts a VISTA position to manage volunteers and activities, as well as advises a student organization of the same name. CRR has leveraged new relationships through VT Engage, including a partnership with the Star City Soccer Foundation, providing after-school tutoring and recreational soccer for refugee / immigrant teens at William Fleming and Patrick Henry High Schools; and Imani Nailah, a program for adolescent girls from refugee families, run in collaboration with the Virginia Tech Women's Center. Star City Soccer offers afterschool tutoring and recreational soccer 2-3 times weekly. Imani Nailah meets weekly for tutoring and programs. CRR is responsive to the needs of the refugee communities. Last year 225 students volunteered with the program through service-learning classes or on their own amounting to over 4,000 service hours.

The 2011 Fall Day of Service addressed hunger relief efforts in the New River Valley region. With the collaborative efforts of two AmeriCorps VISTA members focused on hunger and student engagement, iCAN invited students to assemble teams of 5-10 members and work in concert with one of seven hunger relief agencies such as Micah's Backpack or Interfaith Food Pantry. Teams collected food items specific to the needs of their partner agency over the course of one month, then competed in a canned food sculpture competition with 10 teams. The teams competed on two criteria—amount of food items collected and architectural creativity. Student leaders were responsible for coordinating food drives (collecting a minimum of 100 food items specific to their agencies needs) and attending two gatherings with their community partner. The winning teams received a donation to a nonprofit organization of their choice. The goals of this project were to support local hunger agencies, provide a fun and educational opportunity for students, and build stronger university community partnerships. iCAN met each of these goals. Students effectively stocked the shelves of their partner agencies, collecting 10,000 pounds of food. Students served a total of 569 hours of service and provided meals to 2,450 individuals in our community.

Virginia Tech’s largest day of service event, the 2012 Big Event, enlisted over 6,700 volunteers to complete 990 different projects addressing community needs throughout the New River Valley (NRV, the local region).

For more information regarding community service at Virginia Tech please see:
http://www.engage.vt.edu/
http://www.outreach.vt.edu/ForYou/lifelonglearning.aspx
http://cnre.vt.edu/community/index.html
http://www.cals.vt.edu/news/pubs/innovations/index.php
http://www.caus.vt.edu/outreach
http://www.eng.vt.edu/outreach
http://www.clahs.vt.edu/Outreach/index.html

Note: the Total number of students (27,470) reflects Full-Time undergraduate, graduate, and professional students enrolled in the 2011-2012 Academic Year.