Faculty, staff, and students participate in Fall Community Day and Food Shelf Pie Sales

A record 810 students, faculty and staff from The College of St. Scholastica are expected to perform volunteer services throughout the Duluth/Superior area Wednesday, Oct. 7, as part of the College's annual fall Community Service Day.

Beginning at 9:30 a.m. volunteers will be on site at 50 locations. A short send-off program begins at 8:30 a.m. in the Mitchell Auditorium on campus.

St. Scholastica's Community Service Day volunteers will be at sites including the Damiano Center, Lake Superior Zoo, the end of Park Point, Hartley Nature Center, Duluth City Hall, Union Gospel Mission, Grant Elementary School, Life House, and Seeds of Hope Youth Ranch.

Services will range from helping in classrooms, serving meals and assisting with senior citizen activities to painting, trail maintenance, painting, installing holiday lighting and preparing gardens for winter. College classes are canceled so that students and faculty are able to take part.

As in the past, several student groups will volunteer together.

Volunteers will remove floating docks and boats at Park Point from 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. as a way to provide community support for Courage Duluth, an organization that provides a summer sailing program for disabled people. Students will meet at the public boat ramp at the end of Park Point at 9:30 a.m.

Also, the local student club of Amnesty International will set up a refugee village on campus from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The refugee village will be made up of rough construction and will include a tent set-up and fence construction.

As in past years, students representing a campus group, Social Justice Living Community, will decorate zoo grounds for the annual Boo at the Zoo event.

Volunteers will bake pumpkin pies as a fundraiser for CHUM Food Shelf. Pies go on sale from 1 to 3 p.m. and again from 5 to 6 p.m. at First United Methodist Church (Coppertop church) on Skyline Drive. Pies are $10. The sale continues until all 120 pies are sold.

"This is our 10th year of doing Fall Community Day," noted Jay Newcomb, coordinator of Community Service Day and director of service learning and community partnerships at the College. "We have sent out thousands of volunteers over the years. It is really good for us to build the community for ourselves and support the agencies and schools that are doing good work in hard times."

For more information about Community Day or for a complete list of volunteer sites, contact Jay Newcomb at 723-6552 or see http://www2css.edu/app/community/.