Teaching students to be good stewards of their communities has always been an important facet of an Ozarks education. During the Fall 2012 semester, the fruits of those lessons were evident.
From August to December, Ozarks students logged more than 2,200 hours of community service at various organizations all around the River Valley.
Organizations included Helping Hands, a local non-profit providing homeless prevention for Johnson County; Needy Paws, the local animal shelter; Bearcat Hollow, a restoration project in the Ozark Mountains; Angel Tree and Mustard Seed, two community thrift stores; Clarksville Schools; United Way; Tri-County Soccer, and many others.
Directory of Campus Activities, Emma Bottorff was extremely pleased by the amount of service the campus completed.
"A total of 247 students reported community services hours for an average of about 10 hours per student," Bottorff explained.
Many students are required to complete community service as part of their financial aid packages, but Bottorff was struck by how many students volunteered their time and effort even without that requirement.
"Of the 247 students that completed hours, 114 of them did not have financial aid packages that required them to do community service. We also had some upperclassmen who were doing community service when they weren’t required to complete any after their freshman years," Bottorff said.
"All of those students were completing community service hours of their own volition," she finished.
Topics: Community Service