Next month we'll welcome another first-year class to campus. These new Ambrosians will have some big shoes to fill: Last year's student body volunteered a staggering 83,306 hours. What's more, the value of these hours-at minimum wage-would be a whopping $603,968.
This level of community volunteering and service has earned St. Ambrose five years of recognition on the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll and, for the first time, the Honor Roll with Distinction in 2014.
"Service to the community is simply a part of who we are as a university," said Sister Joan Lescinski, CSJ, the president of St. Ambrose. "We are proud of our students as they fulfill the St. Ambrose mission of ‘enriching lives.'"
The 83,306 hours of volunteer work engaged St. Ambrose students in a wide range of service projects and activities. They tutored children; gathered mobility equipment for the poor; and worked 1,740 hours on 12 Habitat for Humanity builds. At the beginning of the school year, 580 first-year and transfer students volunteered 1,160 hours of simultaneous service across the Quad Cites during "Urban Plunge," an annual project aimed at introducing new Ambrosians to the university's culture of service.
A cornerstone of the St. Ambrose athletics program, community service by student-athletes totaled close to 8,000 hours. Helping 100 neighborhood households, 550 students volunteered 1,925 hours during SAU's 9th annual Bee the Difference Day. SAU Dance Marathon students worked 17,562 hours to raise $175,103 for the Children's Miracle Network.
For some, fall, winter and spring breaks were spent in service in the Quad Cities, or traveling to Chicago, Detroit, East St. Louis, Kentucky and Cleveland, for a total of 1,610 hours.
Additional examples of last year's service:
Engineering students volunteered 920 hours
Service to King's Harvest Pet Rescue involved 240 hours
35 Master of Speech-Language Pathology students volunteered 655 hours
Master of Social Work students put in 32,256 hours of service
200 students volunteered for a South Locust neighborhood cleanup day, providing 800 hours of service
Honors Program students volunteered 880 hours
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