As the fall semester comes to a close, let’s celebrate the excellent work that honors students have done in organizing, facilitating, and volunteering for honors service projects. A big thanks to all our facilitators and volunteers. We’re also grateful to our local Meijer store for donating a $250 gift card that allowed us to purchase gloves and trash bags for many cleanup projects.

In September and early October, 15 facilitators and 160 honors student volunteers collectively did 424 hours of service at 13 service sites as part of our Days of Service and Learning. Service projects included cleaning up the Riverwalk, participating in the Muskegon River Trash Bash, doing a fall cleanup at the Big Rapids Community Garden, washing windows at Evergreen Terrace Assisted Living, assisting with a reception at the Angels of Action headquarters, eradicating invasive species near the Riverwalk, cleaning a shed for WISE, the women’s shelter, cleaning a disc-golf fairway, cleaning a portion of the White Pine bike trail, pulling weeds at CranHill Ranch, doing an Adopt-a-Highway cleanup, and doing maintenance work at Camp Newaygo.

Thanks to our facilitator for the Camp Newaygo project, Paige Budnick, honors students returned to Camp Newaygo for two additional weekend service retreats, Halloweekend and Santa and S’mores. Volunteers helped Camp Newaygo with holiday festivities for the community and stayed overnight at the camp. 17 students participated in the Halloweekend retreat, and nine in the Santa and S’mores retreat. Paige went the extra mile in organizing additional events for honors volunteers during the retreats, including an escape room. We thank Paige for organizing these memorable and enriching retreats and look forward to partnering with Camp Newaygo on future service projects.

Finally, we’re grateful to the Service Committee for facilitating projects during the Days of Service and Learning and planning service projects for honors students throughout the year. The Service Committee organizes Adopt-a-Highway, Adopt-a-Fairway, Adopt-a-White Pine Trail, and Adopt-a-Park cleanups each semester in addition to other projects, such as the current one, making holiday cards for assisted living residents in the Honors Lounge. Honors students can stop by the lounge and make a card between now and December 12.

Anyone who would like to facilitate honors service projects and/or join the Service Committee may volunteer by contacting us at honors@ferris.edu.