Student-run service center doing good deeds
Christmas is coming and the season for giving will soon be here.
What can you do to help others out in your community? Volunteer.
The Val R. Christensen Service Center exists to help you help others.
“Sometimes I feel that when a person thinks of service, or of the service center, they think of a bunch of leaf rakers,” said Kevin Nelson, a senior majoring in business. “It is not the case at all with the service center.”
Nelson is in charge of the service center’s public relations. He has been involved with the center for four years, three of which have been with the Special Olympics team.
“I wanted to get involved in service,” he said.
The service center is located in third floor of the Taggart Student Center. The center has 15 different organizations from which to choose. It is the only service center in Utah on a campus that is completely run by students. They have an adviser, but it is not her job to run the center.
The center was started in 1970 by students as the Volunteer Organization for Involvement in the Community and Environment, or VOICE. Val R. Christensen, who was serving as the director of Student Activities at the time, became their adviser.
In 1999, the center was named after Christensen in honor of all his help and service, Nelson said.
One of the many organizations within the center is the Special Olympics Invitational. The Special Olympics is a year-round program of sports training and athletic competition for more than a million children and adults with mental disabilities, said Nelson. Utah State University is in charge of a fall and spring competition.
The fall sports include swimming and basketball, while the spring sports are track and field. They have around 300 athletes and 80 volunteers.
“It’s great to see them [the athletes] get so excited,” said the director for the Special Olympics Invitational, Brigham Young, a senior majoring in liberal arts and sciences. “They enjoy themselves.”
Young has been volunteering for three years at the center and is responsible this year for organizing everything for the Special Olympics.
“[The service center] gives students a chance not only to serve but to be a part of the community,” he said. “It adds another dimension to your life and gives it more purpose.”
Along with the service center comes Service Thursdays.
Every Thursday the center sets up a table on the first floor of the TSC, to remind the student body to volunteer.
Nelson said that they wanted a way to encourage students to “take a moment out of their busy time” and think about how they could serve or help someone around them.
They have a way for students to choose a random act of kindness, like picking up a piece of trash, and then getting a reward after they do it, at the center.
Service Week 2003 starts Monday and is a wonderful way to get started serving others.
-vramirez@cc.usu.edu