February 2, 2010
St. Mary’s University’s students, faculty, staff and alumni set a new record for the University’s bi-annual day of service, Continuing the Heritage, which was held on Saturday, Jan. 23.
With 542 people working at 31 different sites around San Antonio, St. Mary’s volunteers racked up 2,660 hours of community service in one day!
This past fall semester’s Continuing the Heritage broke the St. Mary’s record books with more than 500 people volunteering, giving more than 2,100 community service hours in one day. The Service Learning Center was hoping to meet that goal, and beat it – and they did!
Some of this year’s projects included working with the University Park Neighborhood Association painting homes in two locations, assembling and installing furniture and appliances at the newly constructed Haven for Hope of Bexar County and planting and painting playhouses and flower boxes at Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower’s Garden of St. Therese. For the first time St. Mary’s was joined by students, teachers and parents from fellow Marianist institution, Central Catholic High School to work at the Southwest Workers Union – Root for Change Community Garden.
During the 2008-2009 academic year, students, faculty and staff engaged in more than 125,000 community service hours; and more than 70 percent of our students participate in community service. Accordingly, St. Mary’s has consistently been recognized by inclusion on the President of the United States’ Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.