Spotlight
Students: Stampede of Service
| USF News
Photo by Wayne Espinola | Courtesy of the Division of Student Affairs
SOS serves more than 60 organizations in Tampa Bay:
- Senior Citizens
- Environment
- Youth
- Homelessness
- Poverty
- Women's Issues
- Education
More than 2,600 students worked at 48 sites around Tampa Bay during the annual Stampede of Service (SOS) on Jan. 14, USF's largest day of volunteering in the community.
Braving the chilly air at 8 a.m., students met up with members of various campus organizations, fraternities and sororities to be sorted into their volunteer groups for the day.
Volunteer activities included aiding the elderly, feeding the homeless and cleaning up parks and playgrounds in the Tampa Bay region.
Andre Pert, a graduate public administration student, spent the day at Lowry Park helping a group of student volunteers pick up trash. Pert has participated in SOS since its inception in 2006, when then USF student Maxon Victor founded it as a way to celebrate the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
"Getting involved and being a part of a lot of organizations kind of opened the door for me so I could give back to the community and make Tampa Bay a better place," Pert says.
SOS is hosted by the Center for Leadership & Civic Engagement (CLCE) at USF and is just one of the organization's community service events. Others include Bulls Leading and Serving Tampa (BLAST) and BullSERVE, which offers monthly and weekly volunteer projects.
The event relies on student volunteers and site leaders to partner up with existing organizations in Tampa Bay that are in need of volunteers.
Shauna-kay Campbell, a business management student, was one of this year's site leaders at Lowry Park. She has been volunteering for four years at SOS and was there to represent the Caribbean Cultural Exchange and National Council of Negro Women.
"It's kind of early to wake up on a Saturday morning but it's a great program to give back to the community, especially when so many people show up." Campbell says. "It's a great kickoff to the new year and a new semester so I think it's one of the better programs here for volunteering."
Campbell says that for many USF students, SOS is the first exposure they get to volunteering during their college career.
"It gives an opening eye to the CLCE and what they do and SOS is kind of the enabler, catalyst that starts people on their volunteering adventures," Campbell says.