Service Through Community Action
University Ministry has created a new Office of Community Action to help coordinate students’ volunteer work.
Community Action will take over all community service coordination from the Office of Community Service and Service Learning. That office, under the direction of Jack McLean, will devote itself to helping faculty design service learning courses. It will be renamed and will operate independently out of the new McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good.
Community Action also replaces Outreach Ministry, an independent office that coordinated some student volunteer programs. Instead of acting independently, Community Action will work with Residence Life, Academic Services, and University Ministry to involve students in service through every aspect of their campus experience.
“We’re seeing this moving in line with a seamless learning experience,” said John Savard, S.J., executive director of University Ministry. “That seam of service will be our strength here at USF.”
Carlos Menchaca, a senior and last year’s USF student body president, will head Community Action. “We wanted a student to take on the animating energy of this program,” Fr. Savard said.
Campus-wide service programs formerly coordinated by McLean, such as October Outreach and April Action, will now be handled by Menchaca.
The office will also continue many of University Ministry’s traditional ties with service groups such as St. Anthony’s dining room and women’s shelter, AIDS patient support service Project Open Hand, and the Sacred Heart School tutoring project. Menchaca hopes to solicit student groups and sports teams for time commitments to the new office.
“We want to create community through service projects,” Menchaca said.
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