Emporia State University students took a winter break from classes over the holidays, but that didn’t stop some from continuing their volunteer activities in the community.
The Hornet basketball team stopped at Horizon Plaza on Jan. 11, before the spring semester began on Jan. 12, to spend part of the morning socializing with the residents, for example. Other students were helping collect Christmas gifts for Angel Trees or passing out food for the Salvation Army during break.
Whether playing cards or doing hands-on work, both student athletes and other students across campus continue to find ways to become involved in their temporary home community.
Hornet athletes late last year were recognized for their volunteer work, earning a No. 14 ranking out of 25 of all teams in both Division I and Division II in the NCAA Team Works Competition.
The university was the only Kansas school ranked in the three-month competition, which included more than 40,000 student athletes from 120 schools in 40 conferences.
Working with a student population of only 6,114, Emporia State outranked 11 larger Top 25 schools, such as Clemson University, with a student population of 22,698, and Fresno State, with 24,136 students.
A total of 331 Hornets participated in 36 different activities for a total of 1,253 volunteer hours during the three-month competition.
Campus wide, all students combined to donate more than 13,000 community service hours to a host of groups throughout the community during the year.
“I think it’s just a culture we have at Emporia State,” said Carmen Leeds, associate director of intercollegiate athletics and senior associate athletic director for the university. “The community service is a way to show student athletes’ appreciation for the community support.”
Blythe Eddy agreed; the students like to make a difference by lending a hand where they can.
“They have a spirit about them that’s just infectious and just really pretty inspiring,” said Eddy, director of student activities and community service for Emporia State’s Center for Student Involvement.
“The best thing is they’re here for such a short amount of time, and yet look at the impact they have on our community.”
The students touch Emporia lives in a variety of ways, she said.
They help non-profits by taking on the responsibility of a “little” through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, or by dressing in costume and taking an icy bath in Mouse Lake to raise funds for the Special Olympics at the Polar Plunge event.
Students also have hosted fundraisers, such as the Nitty Gritty Tie Dye Run, the Dirt Dash and pole-sitting to boost the budgets of some non-profit agencies.
They’ve painted at Camp Alexander and SOS during the United Way of the Flint Hills Day of Caring, helped build a shed for Emporia Child Care, participated in Relay for Life and in the Haunted Trail at Camp Alexander and picked up trash and debris for Emporia’s Clean Sweep project.
Student-athletes have spent lunch hours mentoring at-risk youngsters at Emporia Middle School, spoken to Emporia High School students during Crime Stoppers Scholastic Day, set up and assisted at the Flint Hills Senior Life Fair and worked on building houses for low-income families through Habitat for Humanity.
They also worked with Emporia churches to bag hundreds of pounds of nutritious foods to be distributed internationally through the Numana project, headquartered in El Dorado.
And that is only a sampling of the contributions coordinated through the Athletics Department and through the CSI. Eddy keeps in touch with non-profits about their projects, then sends out emails or posts on Facebook when volunteers are needed from the Community Hornets group.
“I think we try to have as much variety as we can so everyone can give in their own way,” Eddy said. “The service agencies that we work with help students learn how to be good volunteers, as well. ... That benefits us and hopefully in turn they’ll have a great experience volunteering and go out and be ‘those people’ in their own communities. It’s a great partnership, I think.”
Perhaps the best-known and longest-lived event is the annual Senior Prom, hosted by student-athletes for Emporia-area residents 55 years and older.
Former track and field standout Cameron Babb had brought the idea back to campus after being invited to attend an NCAA Leadership meeting.
Babb — now head cross country, track and field coach at Washburn University — said meeting participants were trying to find new ways to get more involvement and interaction between the community and the student athletes.
“We were just brainstorming how to do it, and the senior prom came up,” Babb said. “We just took it and ran with it. ... I had no idea it would continue to evolve.”
The dance proved popular from the start, and soon was featured in an NCAA article, Leeds said. It had been a novel idea, matching student athletes as dance partners for the senior citizens. Live music eventually replaced the deejay, decorations became more complex, refreshments became more substantial and senior citizens numbers grew to more than 200.
The older generation relished the opportunity to dance in a prom setting, while the younger generation invested time and effort in a new kind of training exercise, to keep in step with old times.
“I think the big thing for us was we were excited about taking dance lessons so we could learn to dance ... so when we showed up we actually knew what we were doing,” said Babb, who hopes his schedule will allow him to attend the 10th anniversary Senior Prom this spring.
“You should have seen us when we started,” he said. “Someone should have taken a video."