Volunteers bring life to essential projects
Every volunteer makes a difference. That was the slogan used this year by students as they built support for their favorite cause and public service activity.

In the fall, with national and local elections underway, students were involved in raising community awareness through voter registration drives, phone banks, and neighborhood flyer distribution.

A nonpartisan "Get Out & Vote" campaign, organized by an ad hoc Graduate Public Affairs Council (GPAC) committee, promoted early and absentee voting, distributed nonpartisan voter guides, and placed ads in the Daily Texan. Headed by Sara Moomaw, the effort ultimately registered more than 125 Austin area voters in time for the November 7th election.

In December, as the winter holidays approached, GPAC President Steven Schauer led an effort to sponsor underprivileged families through the Christmas Bureau. The local agency provides lower income families with toys, food, and other items they may need during the holidays. Shortly after issuing an e-mail soliciting donations to adopt one family, Schauer announced that the number of pledges received would allow the School to adopt three families. The adopted families included a group of elderly women, a single father with three young children, and a single mother with a five-year-old son.

GPAC also organized two community service days, one in the fall and another in the spring. Both service days were held on a Saturday, and volunteer teams spread out across the city to work at such sites as the Austin Community Gardens (preparing garden plots), Casa Marianella (cooking a meal at a halfway house for refugees), Capital Area Food Bank (organizing the pantry), Nature Conservancy (doing roadside cleanup), International Children's Festival (assisting with concessions and arts and crafts), and SafePlace (working in a thrift store).

As part of a City of Austin East Side revitalization project, community service day volunteers also helped clean an abandoned building and hauled bulky trash items to the curb for elderly neighborhood residents. Other teams worked with young girls from low-income neighborhoods at a sports festival sponsored by Liv in the Game and helped with a middle school science and technology conference for Expanding Your Horizons.

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May 14, 2001

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