Service Hours 2009-10

St. Ambrose University students put in an unbelievable 31,017 hours of service to the community during the 2009-10 academic year! The students' volunteer service included a wide range of activities and projects, such as:

• Ambrosians for Peace and Justice Service Trips: Students logged 96 hours in Cedar Rapids flood-ravaged areas; 315 hours in an alternative high school in Appalachia; 120 hours at a shelter and on a "Bread Truck," distributing food to Chicago's homeless population; and 140 hours in East St. Louis, working in a women's shelter and after-school program; picking up trash; and serving lunch at a soup kitchen.
• During Welcome Week's "Urban Plunge," 515 first-year students volunteered 1,500 hours of simultaneous community service across the Quad Cities area.
• Bee the Difference Day, a project helping campus neighbors with house- or yard-work, involved 305 Ambrosians providing 1,200 hours of service.
• Volunteers in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program spent 520 hours with their "Littles" in a variety of activities on campus, and in schools and the community.
• Ten students spent nearly 95 hours providing Confirmation Retreats for area junior high students. Thirty Ambrosians participated in Martin Luther King Day Service Projects, working a total of 60 hours.
• Thirty members of "Students Making a Difference" served 200 hours organizing a fundraising dinner for Haiti, working in an after-school program, and making baby blankets for new moms. Ambrosians spent 104 hours visiting the L'Arche community in Clinton, a family-like home where people with and without disabilities share their lives together.
• SAU's "Circle K" (Kiwanis) service organization worked 250 hours, fundraising for such organizations as UNICEF and the Spastic Paralysis Research Foundation, and volunteering for Truman Elementary and Alternatives for the Older Adult. The Phi Eta Sigma honor society raised $500 for an organization that provides clean water in some of the world's poorest regions.
• SAU Habitat for Humanity logged more than 1,200 hours helping the local affiliate and volunteering during spring break in Beaumont, Texas.
• Service Learning involved 40 students who completed more than 800 hours of service. Their projects ranged from caring for animals at the Scott County Humane Society to updating computer systems at a shelter to working with special-needs children.
• More than 80 Ambrosians gave a total of 2,400 hours to raise awareness of worldwide hunger, and gather canned goods and cash for local food pantries during Fast Fest. Volunteers during Hunger Week raised $750 for local food pantries and a "Souper" Bowl Sunday collection added an additional $500. A total of $6,200 was raised for Catholic Relief Service's Earthquake Relief in Haiti.
• SAU Up 'til Dawn raised nearly $10,000 for St. Jude's Children's Hospitals while performing 700 hours of volunteer service.
• SAU student-athlete volunteers performed 5,000 hours of community service as part of their "cornerstone" experience in SAU varsity athletics.
• New this year, Campus Ministry tracked volunteer hours performed as a part of the curriculum and came up with an astonishing 15,042 additional hours of students service. This volunteer work included class projects such as assisting retirement home residents in chronicling their lives, writing letters through Amnesty International, and raising money for "Kids Against Hunger."