Being a student-athlete, means more than just showing up to the school they commit to and playing the sport that they were recruited to play. The University of Louisville is committed to making sure that these student-athletes are role models for young children and teens everywhere both on and off the field. Through a partnership with Helper Helper, Louisville student-athletes are now able to measure the impact they are making in the Louisville local community and abroad.

Throughout the 2015-16 academic year, student-athletes at the University of Louisville amassed a total of 11,049 community service and volunteer hours, which is an average of 17 hours per student-athlete. The number one men’s team was the baseball team, which averaged about 65 hours per student-athlete and totaled 2,747 hours as a team. The top women’s team was tennis, which averaged about 53 hours per student-athlete and totaled 422 total hours as a team.

These aren’t just the players that sit the bench either, with names like Nick Solak leading the baseball team with the most service hours completed by a student-athlete on the team with 96 hours. The NCAA recognized the University of Louisville baseball team as the best men’s team for community service work, and the men’s soccer team received the ACC “Game Changers” Award, which highlights specific ACC teams’ involvement with their local community.

CardsCare is about giving back to the community, and almost 69 percent of the total hours completed by our student-athletes are related to children, and community service such as local cleanup, and going to places like Kosair Children’s Hospital to visit the young children there who look up to these student-athletes. Not only do they give back to the community in the Louisville Metro Area, but places like the Dominican Republic and Vietnam as well.

Providing opportunities for our athletes to make a difference in someone else’s life is crucial to them becoming well rounded individuals. Our athletes visiting places and seeing other individuals who might not have it as good or as easy as them, helps them appreciate all they have earned and accomplished and keeps them from taking their privileges for granted. Our baseball team has eight of the top 10 outstanding student athletes who participated in the most service hours for male student-athletes at the University of Louisville.

This past year, the Louisville field hockey team was named the overall champions for the Helper Helper Community Service Madness Tournament, beating out schools like Oklahoma’s women’s basketball team, for making a difference in the community. Two standout student-athletes who lead the team in the community are Abby Grimes, and Stephanie Byrne, who both totaled 66 hours of community service during the last school year.

“We are very grateful that we have the opportunity every day to give back to the community and help those in need,” said Monica Negron, Community Relations Coordinator. “Being a student athlete at U of L is an honor and every day we receive everything to be the best that we can be. We believe that everyone should have the same opportunity. Thank you Helper Helper to motivate us to keep going.”

Aside from the months that most of the student-athletes are not on campus, such as May and June, the University of Louisville has had over 100 student-athlete volunteers per month, with over 400 service hours per month.

“The community’s support of Cardinal Athletics and our student-athletes is second to none in the country,” said Amy Calabrese, the Assistant Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Development. “It’s important to us as an athletic department to give back to our fans and those in the Louisville and surrounding communities.”

http://www.uoflsports.com/news/2016/5/25/general-cards-care-student-athletes-making-a-difference.aspx

NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH — North Attleborough’s World War I Memorial Park was filled with 200 members of the North Attleborough High School’s boys and girls spring track and field team on April 30.
Instead of javelins, relay batons and other track equipment, these athletes were handling rakes, shovels and wheelbarrows in a community service and fundraising project.
As most North Attleborough residents know, while budgets continue to be slashed, costs and expenditures continue to rise. The same can be said for the high school athletic teams. In just the past three years, the North Attleborough High School spring track and field team has spent over $30,000 on much-needed equipment.

This spring, coaches for the boys and girls spring track and field teams tossed a few ideas around and decided to change up their fundraising approach by incorporating one weekend day of community volunteerism, in the hopes the community would donate to the program.
The coaches felt volunteering for cleanup in the park would be a benefit to a wide range of the town’s population and would also help out the staff of the park and recreation department, who face their own budget cuts.
The team and coaches said they hope the town citizens will like their new approach to fundraising, as they expect this to become an annual event.

To donate: our fund.us/dashboard/donor/donation/458155_North_Attleborough_Girls_Track_and_Field_2016/0/1.

When we speak about our student-athletes, we generally focus on three areas: academics, athletics and community service. As we near the end of another year, we want to share some of the impressive things our student-athletes have done to assist in bettering our community.

During the course of the year, our student-athletes contributed over 3,281 hours of community service and almost 90 percent of our student-athletes participated. They took part in a number of different projects including appearances, speaking engagements, reading opportunities and autograph sessions and were able to reach over 13,000 people. In addition, our student-athletes executed a variety of programs and events:

1. Journey Journals – Student-athletes created journals to distribute at Diamond Children’s Medical Center

2. Pen Pal Letters – Student-athletes exchanged letters with classrooms around Tucson. If interested in taking part in Pen Pals, youth and teachers can learn more about our Classroom Cats Program by clicking HERE.

3. Trick My Bike – Student-athletes partnered with Parking & Transportation and the Office of Sustainability and Facility Management to refurbish bikes to distribute to community schools in order to promote health and wellness and bike safety

4. Shoe Drive – In collaboration with our S’Cool Cats Program, student-athletes and the department donated shoes, while partnering with local elementary schools to secure smaller shoes for donation (VIDEO)

5. Movember – The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee supports Movember to raise awareness for men’s health

6. Cats Give Back 2016 – Achieved the department goal of 500 hours of community service in January

7. Team Impact – Teams are partnered with a child facing a life-threatening illness to create a positive and uplifting support group for the child and their family

8. PAL (Peer Athletic Leaders) Leadership Summit – Student-athletes partnered with the UA Military Outreach Extension to teach leadership skills to middle school students from around Southern Arizona (VIDEO)

We firmly believe there are responsibilities that come with being a student-athlete at Arizona and assisting in the community is one of them. Fortunately, we have student-athletes who don’t see it as something they have to do, but rather something they get to do. So often, our young men and women explain that although they are the ones seen as making an impact, they’re actually the ones being impacted.

We want to congratulate and thank all of the student-athletes who participated this year. Of note, the gymnastics team earned the Athletics Director’s Cup for Community Service, our team award. The GymCats averaged 38 hours of community service per squad member to edge out women’s swimming and diving and softball. Swimming and diving’s Emma Schoettmer (68.25) produced the most volunteer hours of any student-athlete, while track and field’s Avery Mickens (50.25 hours) tallied the most out of our men.

As always, our student-athletes will continue to seek out volunteer opportunities in the Tucson community. If you know of a non-profit that would benefit from working with our student-athletes, please click HERE to access our online request form.

To take a closer look at some of our community service opportunities this year, watch the video below:

Source: http://www.arizonawildcats.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30700&ATCLID=210962434

A group of Bronxville High School athletes fueled up their peers with knowledge about the benefits of leading a healthy and active lifestyle when they prepared them nutritious snacks and set up a variety of physical activities on May 17.
Andrew Babyak, Brian de Paul, Kevin Formato and Morgan Frayne, who are students in Jeremy Goldstein’s Humanities Research class, were tasked with completing a community service project that was meaningful to them and would fulfill the needs of others. The four students took to the field to teach middle school and high school members of the life skills classes at the Bronxville School how to lead healthy lifestyles.
“When you’re eating the right things and staying active, it keeps your mind right and you’re feeling better throughout the day,” said sophomore Andrew Babyak, who plays lacrosse and also swims. “Working with other kids and seeing how much they’re enjoying the stations has made it really worthwhile for us.”
The students prepared strawberry smoothies, gave out healthy snacks to their peers and set up a variety of activities that included zumba dancing, jump rope, hula hoops and an obstacle course that had students weave in and out of cones, kick a soccer ball, run through a ladder and shoot a ball into the net with a hockey stick. For their project, they worked with the nonprofit Fuel Up to Play 60, which is sponsored by the NFL and National Dairy Council, and attended a conference in Manhattan to learn how they could make a difference in their local community.
The Humanities Research class was developed several years ago by social studies Bill Meyer, who is on a leave of absence. Goldstein, who replaced Meyer this semester, said he was proud of the work of his students, some of whom shed light on urban planning and spoke up for animal rights. He said that all projects played an important part in fulfilling the Bronxville Promise.
“Knowledge is important in its own right, but as the Bronxville Promise makes clear, knowledge must be combined with tangible work in our communities if we are to raise engaged citizens,” Goldstein said. “It is not enough to sit in the classroom. It is not enough to tell a student what’s right and wrong, what service is and isn’t. They must live these ideas.”

Photo Caption: Bronxville High School athletes took to the field on May 17 to teach middle school and high school members of the life skills classes at the Bronxville School how to lead healthy lifestyles.

Photo courtesy of the Bronxville Union Free School District

For the sixth consecutive year, Rushmore Avenue School in the Carle Place School District hosted the ALS Ride for Life.

Wearing red to support a cure for ALS, students welcomed Mr. Pendergast and his followers during their 12-day journey from Montauk to Manhattan to raise awareness and money for the 19th annual ALS Ride for Life fundraiser. During the event, the students from Rushmore’s Student Council presented a check for more than $8,000 to the cause. Students from Carle Place Middle School also donated and attended the event.

Photo courtesy of the Carle Place School District