Daemen College, Department of Community Service

Daily Point of Light # 1051 Feb 12, 1998

The Department of Community Service at Daemen College is a student program, its primary objectives are to educate and provide students the opportunity to volunteer their services, skills and abilities to assist the needy and less fortunate in western New York and globally.

Since its inception in 1987, the program has recruited 1,053 student volunteers out of an annual student body of about 2,000. In the past year, students served more than 15,000 volunteer hours in more than 1,000 placement sites in and out of western New York. Each week students serve the elderly in nursing homes, serve the homeless and poor in soup kitchens and serve the sick in hospitals. The students also adopt needy families for Christmas and work with the Red Cross in emergency and relief projects. In addition, they serve in charitable fundraising events and work with Oxfam America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating solutions to hunger, poverty and social injustice, to help feed the hungry people of the world.

The operational costs of the program are fully supported by Daemen's central budget funds. Two paid staff (the director and the secretary) and four work-study students run the office.

Data collected by the office shows that the program has successfully affected the lives of more than 195,000 needy people. The program has also significantly helped to educate and elevate the awareness of many young people and the community-at-large about the social problems confronting society and how they can contribute to solving those problems.


jaytennier