While no two Notre Dame students are alike, many share a desire to serve others and the drive to make things better than they found them.
Those attributes come together in the creation of a volunteer database housed on the studentgovernment.nd.edu website. The 2023-24 Student Government administration unveiled the site this week.
“One of the biggest concerns students have expressed to us is they didn’t know where to find service opportunities in the South Bend region because there wasn’t one place to go to see a list,” said Kate Jackowski, Student Government’s director of community outreach. “There were so many places to look, it was overwhelming.”
‘So many places to look’
Student clubs, residence halls, or any number of courses, departments or committees have community service or engagement offerings, but the opportunities may not be open to all students. For example, visits to a homeless center may be tied to a course or a residence hall may plan a service outing exclusively for its residential community.
What is posted on the volunteer database is available to all students.
“Notre Dame students have such a heart to serve, it’s just like, where are the places that we can serve? How would we get there? Our hope is that having a centralized database is an easy way for students to access some cool service opportunities,” said Daniel Jung, the student body president.
A volunteer database for all students
The database includes “one and done” service options where a student chooses to serve a nonprofit for a few hours. The website also includes continuing commitments.
One offering for ongoing service listed there is Mercy Works, a service program through Campus Ministry that offers transportation and time for reflection on service experiences.
What should nonprofits do?
To avoid confusion, nonprofits should not submit any ongoing service programs with the University to the database; if an opportunity is open to all students, their partner on campus will submit it.
Nonprofits are invited to submit new or additional service opportunities by the 20th of the current month for inclusion on the database the following month. Since the site just launched this week, you may submit February opportunities through the end of the day on Sunday, Jan. 28. The database will be updated on the last day of each month.