Service Raleigh’s 21st annual day of service embarked Saturday morning. Approximately 1,400 NC State students and citizens of the greater Raleigh area gathered in Talley Student Union at 7:45 a.m. with one common goal: giving back to the community.
This citywide day of service was started in 1998 by NC State’s Student Government and Park Scholars.
Samuel Shain, a fourth-year in international studies and involvement co-chair for Service Raleigh, discussed the work that goes into facilitating this NC State tradition.
“We set the date about a year in advance,” Shain said. “We ask [partner organizations], ‘Realistically, how many volunteers do you need to accomplish whatever your project is?’ and when they give us the number, we provide our database with the number of students that are necessary, and then we auto-match.”
Rather than planning service events for the community, Service Raleigh aims to match individuals who are interested in volunteering with organizations who are in need of volunteers. With over 75 partner organizations, Service Raleigh has an expansive network with which to implement service in Raleigh and its surrounding areas.
“We do acknowledge that there is a lot of power in collective volunteerism,” Shain said. “We bring together everyone for a day of service so that people who might not have done volunteerism before or those that don’t do it with enough frequency have the opportunity to see how many different nonprofits are out there and how many different types of groups could really use their assistance.”
Despite the rainy weather, Talley Student Union was buzzing from 7:45 a.m. onward, with eager volunteers ready to arrive at their designated service sites and make a difference in their communities. Mikayla Graham, a fourth-year studying plant and soil sciences, was excited to begin her first Service Raleigh day fulfilling the role of site leader.
“I did Service Raleigh last year as a volunteer, and I really loved it, and then this year I came back as a site leader because I wanted to be more involved in it,” Graham said. “[Being a site leader] basically just means that I get to correspond with a specific site and ask them what they need, what kind of equipment we need, and then I relay the information to the volunteers.”
Mary Kathryn Wallace, a fourth-year studying paper science, was similarly excited to serve her community with her fellow paper science majors.
“This is something we do every year, because it’s a good thing to do for the community,” Wallace said.
While the volunteers’ spirits were unaffected by the inclement weather, Service Raleigh’s leaders had to scramble to accommodate alternative projects for volunteers affected by the rain. Graham’s project experienced some last-minute changes due to weather.
“We were supposed to build outdoor gardens for a retirement nursing home,” Graham said. “Now, since the rain has come, we are supposed to play bingo with the residents.”
Despite the setbacks, Shain was content with the outcome, praising the volunteers for their commitment to service.
“Ultimately, we feel really comfortable with the number and turnout that we got,” Shain said. “Considering everything, we were really impressed and overall very satisfied with the turnout.”
More information about Service Raleigh, including next year’s day of service, can be found on the organization’s website.
