UVU’S Center for Social Impact’s 25th anniversary is commemorated with a yearlong celebration of service.
How would you celebrate 25 years of community outreach, student leadership, and nonprofit partnerships? For the students of UVU’s Center for Social Impact, the answer was simple — service. For the 2018-2019 school year, the Center for Social Impact hosted a service project on the 25th of each month to commemorate their 25 years of community impact.
This collection of monthly service projects was named the “Be the Change Tour,” taken from a quote often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
“It was a little stressful planning a whole year’s worth of service projects,” said Kendyll Maughan, student coordinator for the Be the Change Tour. “We had to create something new and exciting for a center that’s been working for change over the past 25 years.”
In order to provide a variety of service opportunities throughout the year, Maughan and her committee of fellow UVU students looked at both the center’s established partnerships as well as new organizations that would allow for continued collaboration in the future.
When choosing the monthly service projects, students looked at social issues in the community and found needs that they were passionate about. Since they rotated areas of focus each month, they also looked for projects that could be scaled down, allowing for volunteers to make a difference at a single event.
A few of the participating organizations in the Be the Change Tour included:
While each of these student-led projects left an impact, the community was not the only one to benefit from the service.
“The students involved in planning and executing the Be the Change Tour learned a lot about how to work in community, event planning, volunteer recruitment, and program management,” said Amber Hendrickson, coordinator of community partnerships for the Center for Social Impact. “They not only led other students on campus, but they served as leaders and connectors in the community.”
At the end of her term on the service council, Maughan looked back at the “amazing opportunity” she had to lead the Be the Change Tour. “Everyone has something to offer, and the Center for Social Impact has created a space to make that happen. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the Center accomplishes in the next 25 years.”
For more information about the Center for Social Impact’s 25th anniversary, visit this site.
The Center for Social Impact, formerly the Volunteer & Service-Learning Center, provides co- and extra-curricular student programming through the department of Student Development and Well-Being in Student Affairs. The center also supports Academic Service-Learning as directed through Academic Affairs.
With an updated mission of "Driving social impact by connecting students and community," the center now promotes a framework of six diverse pathways for active citizenship that goes beyond volunteerism and service-learning.
