VU honored for worldwide community service

VALPARAISO | Community service efforts by Valparaiso University softball players, civil engineering students and social action leaders have led to the university being named to the President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for the third time in four years.

The award is the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service learning and civic engagement.

The award was largely focused on three service projects during the 2008-2009 academic year:

* The VU softball team's I Need a Hug program, during which players collected hundreds of stuffed animals for elementary school guidance counselors to use as tools for children going through difficult times. 

* A project in which a team of civil engineering students designed and constructed a 500-foot road so that a young girl with spina bifida in Costa Rica could more easily access her home.

* A Social Action Leadership Team project to fund a sustainable, gravity-fed pipeline system to bring clean water year-round to nearly 900 people in a rural Chinese village.

Honorees are chosen based on scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service and the extent to which the school offers academic service learning courses.

More than 1,900 VU students participated in 55,265 hours of community service through academic work, involvement in student organizations or on their own in 2008-2009, according to a university statement.