cityCURRENT Radio Show

Radio Show: Christian Brothers University

Episode Summary

CBU's September of Service is a student-led service initiative started in 2012 that provides CBU students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends with 30 different opportunities to serve in the month of September! By putting CBU’s Lasallian values of faith, service, and community into action, CBU’s S.O.S. benefits Memphis agencies and the clients they serve.

Episode Notes

Christian Brothers University September of Service is a student-led service initiative started in 2012 that provides CBU students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends with 30 different opportunities to serve in the month of September! By putting CBU’s Lasallian values of faith, service, and community into action, CBU’s S.O.S. benefits Memphis agencies and the clients they serve. 

September of Service: 30 Days of Good Deeds - a different service project in Memphis every day in September for the CBU community. Originated by CBU Honors Program in 2012, now in its 8th year.

Primary purpose of SOS is to provide an opportunity for ALL members of CBU to serve local agencies, a different one each day of September

• Faculty, staff, students, administration, CBU President, Brothers, Trustees, alumni, and family all serve
• This is a very unique aspect to our program; most campus service programs typically only involve students

Another important purpose of SOS is to learn about Memphis and the many nonprofit agencies that work so hard to meet our community's needs-and ultimately; to have our students and staff fall in love with Memphis!

• SOS is led by a staff member and team of 10 to 12 students.
• Project size ranges from 5-100, with average being around 15.
• Work with 30 different agencies per year and a total of 95 over its 8 years.

Agencies have included:

Memphis Child Advocacy Center, Overton Park Conservancy, Manna House,Wolf River Conservancy, Catholic Charities, Church Health, Caritas Village, Collierville Animal Shelter, Elmwood Cemetery, Urban Bicycle Food Ministry, Ave Maria, Memphis Tilth, Levitt Shell, Madonna Learning Center....

In its previous 7 years the project provided a total of 3,796 volunteers and 12,311 hours to the Memphis community.

According to independentsector.org, which calculates the value of volunteer time in each state, CBU's September of Service has provided service worth $261,349.

So far this year (as of 9/12/2019) SOS has provided 518 volunteers to 12 agencies and served 507 hours.

The SOS website (www.cbu.edu/sos) allows volunteers to sign up online. Volunteers carpool to events. Lots of fun photos are taken and posted on Facebook later that evening. Volunteers take a "Why I serve" photo at each event.

The month-long project begins and ends with campus-wide celebrations.

Learn more:  http://cbusos.com/