t time you answered the call to ser vi s a l e h t ce? was that is significant at an academic level as well as on a personal level. They want to be involved in something greater than themselves.” This new generation of students fuels an increase in the number of service initiatives across campus, each year. To meet student Imagine the potential if we all contributed just one hour a day, a week or interest and demand, the college continues to add locations and a month to causes about which we care. We could help feed the hungry, outreach opportunities to several of its long-standing service programs, provide shelter for the homeless or educate underprivileged children. such as Alternative Spring Break and Winter Service Week. It also When you contribute your time, your skills and your compassion, introduces new service initiatives, as well. you make life a little easier and a bit more joyful for someone else and When the Office of Campus Ministry decided to partner with the local yourself - after all, service is food for the soul. chapter of the Burrito Project last year, students responded, over“Nothing beats a smile on a child’s face or is as heartwarming as a hug,” whelmingly. Each week, these undergraduates gather in the undercroft says All-College Honors student Mary Mietlicki ’12. “It makes you feel of Christ the King Chapel to prepare upwards of 120 fresh, home-made good inside and lets you know that what you are doing really does matter.” burritos. They then walk a four-mile route to deliver the burritos to the Maybe we can all learn from Mietlicki and her peers at Canisius, who city’s poor and homeless populations. Students stop at an alcoholic’s anonymous meeting, the bus station, half-way houses and pocket-parks, make service an integral part of their lives. and an overnight drop-in center for the homeless. Last year alone, these charitable role models - 2,600 of them - contributed approximately 33,000 hours of service to local, regional and global “The people we help have nothing but each week we provide them communities. They carried out their efforts via service - and community- with something that they can count on,” says James Smith ’12. Smith based learning opportunities, service-immersion experiences, and and his brothers in the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity are among the original participants in the Buffalo through countless campus ministry, student-athlete and student club Burrito Project, and played a key role volunteer initiatives. in expanding participation in the “Service is an inherent part of the Canisius story and is as aged as program from once, every other the institution’s Jesuit founders, who believed education should week; to once every week. “One develop individuals ready to act for the civic good,” explains of SigEp’s cardinal principles is Scott A. Chadwick, PhD, vice president for academic affairs. virtue,” says Smith. That doesn’t It’s a concept that more and more schools are beginning mean simply holding the door for to emulate. The Corporation for National and Community someone or picking up littered trash. Service reports that a growing source of the nation’s volunteers is college students. The growth is attributed, in part, to the number of high schools, public and parochial, that now require students to participate in community service. Has it been too long?
“The students who choose Canisius for their education do not come here for a degree alone,” adds Chadwick. “Our students want a college experience
g beats a smi “Nothin le on
12 | |C AC NA INS II SUI SU SC OC LOLLELGE EG EM M A GA AG ZAI ZNI EN E•
• W W I NI TNETRE R2 021011 1
a ch
ild
’s f ac e