SPRINGFIELD, Ohio – Wittenberg students are teaming up with Springfield community members to make the university’s 13th annual Celebrate Service event, to be held on Saturday, May 3, the biggest and best yet.

Wittenberg’s Community Service program has organized the event to account for an anticipated 75 participants, who will branch out to seven locations across the community to participate in service projects. The event will be led by student-organizers Caroline Matchett, class of 2014 from River Falls, Wisconsin, Evan Cameron, class of 2014 from Dover, Ohio, and Alyssa Hughes, class of 2015 from New Britain, Connecticut with support from the rest of the staff. The 2014 theme is “We Serve!” and focuses on celebrating the impact students have on making a difference in the local community.

“We will take the time to celebrate not only the contributions made on this day, but also to celebrate the contributions made over the last year.  We believe one of the best ways to celebrate is to get out and serve,” said Kristen Collier, Director of Community Service.

Celebrate Service participants have different projects to select from; they will be engaged in outdoor work such as landscaping, constructing a rain garden, and planting trees as well as sprucing up and organizing a mission house.  Students will be matched with South Fountain Preservation, Inc., the YMCA, Oesterlen Services for Youth, the Springfield Promise Neighborhood, the Children’s Rescue Center, the City of Springfield, and Clark County Developmental Disabilities. 

“We are very excited about the opportunities for students to get to know different areas of the Springfield community this year,” said Hughes. “We are working with different sites than we have in the past. Most of the sites are providing green projects to help improve our community and students will be able to be a part of these exciting initiatives.”

Space is limited at each site. Students, faculty and staff members can register at http://www.wittenberg.edu/communityservice.