By Liam Walsh ’18 I Staff Writer
Bringing approximately 100 charities to South on Feb. 3, the annual Spirit of Giving event will be hosted by SERVE to promote community volunteering.
“Spirit of Giving is like a trade show for non-profit organizations,” assistant director of SERVE Allison Baker said. “Students can come and learn about different volunteering opportunities. It’s almost like the College Night but with volunteering opportunities.”
This year, charities include Gleaners, a food bank, SOAR, a tutoring service; and Ronald McDonald House, a place for families of sick children to stay during hospital visits.
“I can tell you about all of them, because every time I tell you about one, I fall in love with that organization,” Alicia Carlisle, director of SERVE said. “It’s kind of neat because we include our student organizations. So it’s a nice time for them to learn about Interact or our environmental clubs, so we’ll have a lot of clubs that kids can learn about, too.”
There’s a charity for everybody at Spirit of Giving according to Carlisle.
“You’ve got all these different organizations,. You’ve got Special Olympics. You’ve got literacy ones. We’ve got homeless ones,” Carlisle said. “We’ve got just about everything you can think of. Organizations that deal with cancer for kids. There’s so many opportunities for people to volunteer, there’s no way you can’t find something.”
There are other activities at the Spirit of Giving, like Kids Against Hunger food packaging lines and seed planting for Full Circle’s urban garden, said community relations specialist Rebecca Fannon.
“Hands-on activities like Kids Against Hunger food packaging lines, an American Red Cross Blood Drive, starting at 2 p.m.,” Fannon said in a press release. “Seed planting for Full Circle’s urban garden means you can start giving back to the community that night while you find the right fit for future volunteer endeavors.”
Kids against Hunger will be putting together over 5,000 meals at Spirit of Giving, said Baker.
“Kids Against Hunger scoops and weighs and packages the different meals. It goes to people in our community that need meals,” Baker said. “This one little package can provide dinner to a family of five. Add water, and you’ve got dinner.”
Soup for the Soul is at Spirit of Giving. Soup for the Soul is having dozens of restaurants donate soup to the event for people to have according to Carlisle.
“We partner with the Chamber to do Soups for the Soul, and so about a dozen restaurants in our area are donating big pots of soup. So you can come in and get a cup of soup and walk around,” Carlisle said. “We ask for donations. You don’t have to give anything. You can just take it because it’s free. You can even put a penny in. Whatever’s there at the end of the night is going to go to one of our non-profits in a raffle.”
Through the opportunities at Spirit of Giving, students are able to get service hours just by going, Baker said.
“You could get service hours just by coming,” Baker said. “You could sit and do the line and get service hours by coming. So that’s a good way of getting service hours.”
SERVE also has an area on its website where students are able to log your service hours.
“What happens is when you want to keep track of service, especially as a freshman coming in, it’s the easiest thing,” Carlisle said. “So you click on the Time Log button on SERVE’s webpage. That’s the form. It takes you about 30 seconds. You plug that service in there, and now you have started your service record.”
The service record is also verified and students are able to send an e-mail and have their service record sent back to them, which they can use for colleges or NHS according to Carlisle.
“Colleges and scholarships know that they are verified and not made up, which some people do,” Baker said. “And they look into it, and so this is a verified record that the district stands behind, so that’s pretty cool and it’s super easy to do.”
Spirit of Giving is at South this year, but it rotates and is at North if College Night is at South.
It will be held in the Main Gym from 6 to 8 p.m. A SERVE blood drive run by the American Red Cross starts at 2 p.m.
