University of Guelph’s Project Serve celebrating 25 years of volunteerism

Close to 400 students, staff and faculty at the namesake university in Guelph, Ont., are getting together for a huge volunteer event.

Project Serve is a one-day community engagement event where University of Guelph volunteers help local service agencies and non-profits.

They are marking their 25th anniversary this Saturday.

This also marks the first time since the start of pandemic that they are having a live event.

“We haven’t had a big Project Serve day since COVID (started),” said Jayden Lakhani-Travis, a third year co-op student and part of the school’s Student Volunteer Connections. “We are super excited to be really having these students together again and working with all the community partners again for this event.”

One of the purposes of Project Serve is to engage students in volunteerism.

“We try our best to assign the student to the different organizations,” said Mahek Patel, a peer helper with Student Volunteer Connections. “Students can step into volunteerism, know what it is about and how it can affect the community.”

There are close to 25 different organizations that will be involved in Project Serve. They include the Guelph Food Bank, Hanlon Creek Park, Marianne’s Place, Green Legacy and Guelph Community Orchard Project.

“Wyndham House is doing an online volunteering opportunity,” said Lakhani-Travis. “We have students brainstorming marketing ideas for them. It is a different volunteer in the past but it is very interesting.”

For those unable to attend on Saturday, other Project Serve events throughout the year will include a clean-up day in October at the Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming on the University of Guelph campus as part of Sustainability Month.

To learn more about Project Serve or its upcoming events, follow U of G Experiential Learning on Instagram and Twitter.

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