Eastern logs hours for community service award

BY: ELISE SVOBODA
progress@eku.edu

Eastern may finally ‘challenge’ rival Morehead State and now Murray State in the fourth year of the Challenge for Change.

The Challenge for Change began Jan. 12 and runs through Feb. 19. The month long event puts Eastern versus Morehead and Murray State to see which school can earn the most community service hours within the time span.

Students have plenty of ways to volunteer and compete with the other schools, ranging from a clothing drive to donating blood at a blood drive on campus, said Brandon Mandigo, Vice President of Residents Life Council (RLC).

“Usually Morehead gets about like 10,000 service hours in a matter of a month, so that’s what their aiming towards again this year, so that’s what we’re aiming for: 10,000 plus hours for this next month,” Mandigo said.

The Office of Student Services within the Office of Student Life and Student Government Association (SGA) are sponsoring it and the hours can be logged on OrgSync in the Community Service tab available on the site.

Mandigo said there are different ways for student organizations to log hours to help boost Eastern’s participation.

“If an organization has a canned food drive, three canned food items count as an hour,” Mandigo said. “If an organization raises money for a philanthropy, every $10 will count as a service hour. We have different service projects going on.”

Brian Perry, Assistant Director in Student Life said during the Challenge for Change all the service that goes on campus can be counted toward the goal. Eastern students are encouraged to log their hours to help beat the other universities.

“We are trying to get students to submit all the service that they do,” Perry said. “Whether it’s part of our office or whether it’s something that a sorority or a fraternity is doing, or whether it is another one of our student organizations that is going out and doing some service work, we’re trying to capture all of that in this challenge.”

Prizes are available for students and organizations that participate in the challenge.
The student who completes the most community service hours will win a $100 electronic of their choice and the organization with the most time volunteered receives $100 to donate to the philanthropy of their choice.

For more information about the Challenge for Change, contact Brandon Mandigo at brandon.mandigo@eku.edu.