Hundreds give back to community through Service Raleigh

Almost 2,000 students volunteered their time Saturday participating in service work to help NC State and dozens of local organizations through Service Raleigh, the largest student-organized service event in the Triangle area.

The annual event began in Talley Student Union where students gathered in their volunteer groups and listened to speakers, including former Student Body President Jackie Gonzalez and City Council member Nicole Stewart. Lily Goff, a third-year studying mechanical engineering and international studies and one of the three co-chairs of Service Raleigh, said the event exists to encourage students to become active citizens.  

“[Service Raleigh is] to make people aware of the service opportunities in the community, especially for college students,” Goff said. “It’s often difficult to find those resources and to be able to get there, so Service Raleigh is an opportunity for people to get more acquainted with what’s around them.” 

This year, Service Raleigh partnered with over 70 organizations throughout the Raleigh area including The Boys and Girls Club, Habitat for Humanity and The Umstead Coalition. Atif Mahmood, a third-year studying human biology and biochemistry and one of the co-chairs for Service Raleigh, said the local organizations appreciate the help students give them during the event.

“We reach out to almost every nonprofit in the Raleigh area within a 38-minute drive from NC State’s campus,” Mahmood said. “All those organizations are aware of Service Raleigh and all those organizations, or a lot of them, send projects over and are really happy to have us every year.”

The event is sponsored by NC State Parks Scholars, the Goodnight Scholars program and the Inter-Residence Council and partnered with Feed the Pack to collect canned food for the university’s food pantry.

“This is a huge event, and it’s been going on for such a long time,” Mahmood said. “It’s become kind of a part of the NC State tradition, which is also really cool that there’s a service event with 2,000 people. It is the largest service event in the Triangle that is student-run.”

Janey Brown, a first-year studying engineering and staff volunteer at Service Raleigh, said that she was motivated to participate in the event to help give back to people in need.

“I just really think as citizens of the earth, we should give back to the community, try to pay it forward for everything we’ve been given,” Brown said. “Being born here in America is such a great opportunity to give back to those in need.”

According to Mahmood, over 1,800 students volunteered Saturday, like Louis Le, a graduate student studying computer science, who has volunteered at Service Raleigh for the past two years.

“It’s once a year and it’s really cool because everyone just kind of comes together and joins up,” Le said. “You can meet a lot of new people and do a lot of cool things, and kind of learn about the community and stuff around you.”

Students signed up for one of the 74 different groups that traveled to different work sites in the community that varied from picking up litter around campus to stocking soup kitchens.

“Some of them will be going around and helping minimize the litter,” said Marsai Miller, a third-year studying neurobiology and Spanish and another co-chair of Service Raleigh. “Another group is going to be helping Habitat for Humanity ReStores and cleaning up the ReStores. Some could be spreading mulch and it could vary from helping to stack stuff in the soup kitchens and another one of them could be painting ...  Honestly just helping people in the community with whatever they need.”

Many students participating in Service Raleigh were looking to give back to the community. Emily Brown, a fourth-year studying physics, said she wanted to volunteer in the event before her time at NC State ended. 

“I haven’t done it before and I wanted to help out around the community before I graduated,” Brown said. “We’ve been a part of [the community]. Raleigh and the community have given us a lot of support.”

Student who are interested in getting involved in the Service Raleigh committee for next year’s event can visit the Service Raleigh website beginning next fall.