WASHINGTON – Members of the Georgetown University women’s basketball squad have been active both on and off the court this season as the squad has dedicated itself to giving back to the community.
Head Coach Natasha Adair returned to the Hilltop to take over in April after a stint as an assistant coach for the Hoyas from 1998-2004. She immediately encouraged her student-athletes to take a more active role within the Georgetown community and off campus as the team has ventured all over the city.
“Our mission as a university and a program is to serve others,” said Adair. “My goal for our student-athletes is to take on a servant’s mentality as we can benefit from helping others. Giving our time and support to our community is our way of saying thank you to all the people who have helped us along our journey. Community outreach and the opportunity to engage with others teaches our players invaluable lesson about life, diversity and perseverance.”
During the off season, the players were able to interact with patients in the pediatric ward at Georgetown University Hospital as well as distributing lunches to the less fortunate in Dupont Circle.
However, in season, it can be more difficult to find time to give back with two games a week, practice and classes. Adair worked hard to build in that time showing the student-athletes that community service is also a vital part of their development on the Hilltop.
In November, the team served dinner to the less fortunate the day before Thanksgiving at Georgetown Lutheran Church. From serving meals to cleaning up, it gave players an opportunity to make a difference and to hear the stories of different people from all walks of life.
“Serving dinner was cool because we gave the people an opportunity to experience Thanksgiving dinner in a family-type atmosphere,” said junior Katie McCormick. “Most of the people there were homeless so to give them that experience was really nice.”

Prior to Christmas, members of the squad donated their time wrapping gifts at Pentagon City Mall with all proceeds going to Arms Outstretched Ministries and Walter Reed Hospital families.
A few weeks ago, the squad spent Martin Luther King, Jr., Day cleaning up Pope Branch Park on the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington. It was a different part of the city for many of the players and also an opportunity to give back on an important day for our nation.
“It was important that, as a team, we’re not always just playing the game,” said freshman Dorothy Adomako. “MLK Day was about giving back to the community that comes to our games to cheer us on.”
As the team hits the halfway point of conference play, service may not be on the forefront of everyone’s mind. However, taking that time off of the court to give back puts in perspective what the student-athletes are achieving at Georgetown. The world-class education coupled with high-level basketball does not reach the Jesuit philosophy of “Cura Personalis”, the whole person, without that included element of service to others.

Source:

Points of impact

NCAA Team Works places community service projects and various partnerships under one umbrella

BY Greg Johnson

NCAA Team Works projects include giving backpacks of school supplies to students in Pike Township in Indianapolis (above) who pledge to do a significant amount of reading, and building outdoor basketball courts (below) at the Boys and Girls Club in Arlington, Texas. Submitted by NCAA staff
The NCAA has unveiled a new initiative designed to call attention to the community service projects taking place throughout the national office.

NCAA Team Works aims to unify all national office staff community service efforts. Whether it’s helping at youth sports clinics or distributing food to the needy, visiting hospitals or cleaning community parks, NCAA Team Works seeks to draw more attention to outreach projects by promoting them as one united effort.

One program that will now fall under the Team Works umbrella is NCAA Community 101, which encourages service-learning projects for young people and provides them an educational platform to impact their communities. Through those programs, the NCAA seeks to assist communities in addressing their local needs through projects that are relevant, long term and meaningful to both volunteers and the people who are being served.

Team Works will focus on projects that involve education, community service and legacy projects in which the effects will benefit the community for years to come.

“We are modeling this after what our membership is doing,” said Victor Hill, NCAA associate director of championships, team works and community programs. “We’ve noticed what athletic departments throughout the membership do to teach student-athletes social responsibility. We know they are doing a good job.”

While the program has a new name, the work is a continuation of years of established community work the NCAA has led. For example, in August, the national office staff hosted a pep rally for third-graders in an Indianapolis township and distributed backpacks containing school supplies. In exchange, the school superintendent asked each of the children to pledge to read 30 books before the 2015 Men’s Final Four in Indianapolis takes place in April. Those who reach the goal of reading at least 30 books will be invited to attend the NCAA Community 101 celebration that takes place at Lucas Oil Stadium the weekend of the Men’s Final Four.

Another area that will fall under NCAA Team Works is a collaboration of the NCAA and the Nancy Lieberman Foundation’s DreamCourts program, which builds high-quality basketball courts in disadvantaged areas. The agreement calls for an outdoor basketball court to be built in the cities that host upcoming Men’s and Women’s Final Fours. In April, a court will be constructed in Indianapolis and another at a Boys and Girls Club in the Tampa Bay, Florida, area.

Last year, more than 11,000 young people signed up to be a part of NCAA Community 101 to participate in service efforts at the Final Four sites in North Texas and Nashville. Collectively, those students logged more than 130,000 community service hours in six months on efforts that included cleanup projects in underprivileged neighborhoods.

“When you consider that there are over 460,000 student-athletes in the NCAA each year, our student-athletes are making tremendous impact on their communities” Hill said. “NCAA Team Works is an extension of that. We want to teach social responsibility to kids at a young age.”

SOURCE: http://www.ncaa.org/champion/points-impact

Student athletes at Saginaw Valley give a lot on the field, but what some might not realize is that they give just as much off of the field, too.

Throughout the year, many of the SVSU sports teams make an effort to give back to their community through different types of community engagement and community service.

What makes Saginaw Valley a place where you can find such a relationship between players and the community is the selflessness of the players, but also the athletic department’s goal of giving back.

On Saturday, Jan. 31, SVSU Athletics hosted its seventh annual “Breast Cancer Survivor Recognition” event. During halftime of the “Pink Wave” women’s basketball game against Ferris State University, breast cancer survivors were escorted onto the court by the men’s basketball players and were then individually recognized.

“(One of our) goals is community service and community engagement and for our student athletes to be involved,” SVSU athletic director Mike Watson said.

Watson added that it is crucial for the student athletes to give back because they have been given great opportunities and consequently have the ability to do so.

“We have young men and young women that are coming through our program, competing on our athletic teams, and the reason that they are competing on our teams is that they are very talented at whatever their sport is,” he said. “They’ve been given a gift to perform at their sport, and oftentimes it helps pay their way through college.

“We want our student athletes to understand that they need to give back or make a major contribution to those who have not been given or afforded the same opportunities that they have been given.”

When asked if he or his teammates do any charity work, baseball player Chris Perkovich’s first response was, “Yeah, do you have an idea for us?” He and his teammates have made sure to do their part in giving back.

“We’ve gone and helped serve food to the less fortunate in Saginaw, and just seeing the smiles on their faces made it awesome,” Perkovich said. “We got to sit down and talk to people as well, and it’s just really humbling.”

Perkovich added that the team also goes to the Great Lakes Bay Miracle League, a non-profit organization that helps children with physical and mental disabilities.

“The Miracle League is the coolest thing,” he said. “To be there helping kids out and just seeing them have fun out there is second to none.

“Those kids really look up to us and you really can’t beat it.”

Some of the events put on by the athletic department and athletic teams include the Cardinals Kids Club and the Community Youth Days, two events that bring the youth in the community closer with the student athletes.

The Community Youth Days is an event that brings area children from K-8th grade onto campus where they get to meet student athletes. The athletes teach the children the fundamentals of their respective games before signing autographs in the final portion of the event.

Ashley Henderson and the rest of the SVSU women’s soccer team helped out at the Community Youth Days earlier this year. When the sophomore forward isn’t scoring goals for the team, she is doing her part in the community. She said that the experiences have been truly inspiring.

“Being athletes, I think it inspires kids when we volunteer,” Henderson said. “Kids really look up to college athletes and follow them as role models.

“I like volunteering because I know I’m helping more people than just the [people attending the] event.”

In addition to the Community Youth Days, teams also put forth individual fundraisers. One example is last Saturday’s “Pink Wave” basketball game. It was the 7th annual “Breast Cancer Survivor Recognition” event, and at halftime of the women’s basketball game that day, breast cancer

survivors were escorted onto the court by the players and recognized by their name. Money that was raised is allocated to Covenant Healthcare, where it is used to allow women without insurance to be checked for early signs of breast cancer. Watson estimates that 20-25 women have been

able to get help and beat breast cancer due to money raised by SVSU.

In October, SVSU will host its 7th annual “Trunk or Treat” event that is put on by the SVSU athletic department inside the O’Neill Arena. The event offers its own form of community engagement. Children come to campus to trick or treat with their parents and grandparents, allowing for a fun

family day.

It is events such as these that have helped SVSU win two Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) awards and three NCAA awards for community service and community engagement.

Watson added that not only do these opportunities to give back help the community, but they also help the student athletes become leaders.

“Part of the responsibility of being a college graduate is that no matter where you live in this country, you are probably more than likely going to be deemed a leader,” he said. “Part of the responsibility of being a leader is to give back, and so we really try to drive that point home.”

As the players give back to their community, Watson says that they buy in to the act of giving.

“We had hoped that because of our goal as a department to give back to the community, our teams would buy into that, and they have,” he said. “As a department we don’t control all of the things that our teams do, so much of it is on them.”

Watson is hopeful that the student athletes get the confirmation that they are doing something good from the community service and community engagement.

“You know you’re doing something good, and that’s all I really want our students to understand,” he said. “You’re trying to do something good, and I hope people walk away from it feeling good about it.

“I just believe there’s more to athletics than wins and losses.”

by: Joey Oliver

Source: http://www.valleyvanguardonline.com/?p=6062

A group of Georgia Tech student-athletes changed their lives, lives of others via FCA service trip to Dominican Republic

GoJackets 18 student-athletes went on the Dominican Republic service trip.

Feb. 2, 2015
By Jon Cooper
The Good Word

In sports, winning teams are said to make their breaks.

For a group of 20 Georgia Tech student-athletes representing the campus chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), their break, a service mission to the Dominican Republic, helped make them.

The La Romana community is only about 1,300 miles from Atlanta, roughly a three-hour flight. Yet living conditions there make it seem light years away.

That combination of proximity, yet disparity of quality of life made it the ideal location for a service mission this past Dec. 13-18. Tech’s FCA Campus Director Keith Brown, Marla Williams, and GT alumni Kele Eveland (volleyball) and Alysha Rudnik (softball) also made the trip.

A major goal of the mission was to build a recreation center and a water-retention facility in a little area called “Hope Mission.”

Brown noted that the mission served as much of a vehicle to change the perspective of the student-athletes as it was to serve the people of the Dominican Republic.

“It was set up as a service trip to really just get them away from their little bubble here at Tech,” he said. “Get them into a third-world country where they get to see what the rest of the world or other parts of the world look like. Kind of get them away and let them serve rather than be served.”

Junior pitcher Jonathan King was one of several athletes who initially was hesitant to go, as the trip departed almost immediately after final exams ended. After some reflection he was all-in.

“I kind of thought about it, `That’s a week of winter vacation I’d have to miss,'” King recalled. “But when I thought about it, I was like, `Man, this is a great opportunity.’ And it was.”

King wasn’t alone as last-minute entrants.

“I came up with the decision about five minutes before I emailed [Mark Parker, Director of FCA Atlanta Collegiate Ministries],” said junior hurdler Julian Darden. “I had never been on a service trip before. I mean I’m always open to volunteer around the city and back home in Baton Rouge, but I never thought I’d have the time to go out of the country on one of these trips because I’m so busy here with school and track. But FCA covered a lot of the costs to go on this incredible trip. It took me about a week of thinking and I just felt something was pressing on my heart, that I wanted to go. It was probably one of the best things I’ve ever experienced through Georgia Tech.”

The mission lasted five days but the memories will last a lot longer.

The work was hard, the days long and getting used to the conditions was an adjustment, but things quickly fell into place and the student-athletes made the service mission fun.

“First of all, they’re student-athletes at Georgia Tech, so they’re a high-caliber kid,” said Brown. “And they approached it in an incredible way. When we hit the ground, I gave them a few little guidelines. The first place we went to, within an hour and a half of being off the airplane, we were at a community park near the airport. The kids jumped out of the van and they went and just started hanging out with kids, playing with them, just basically loving on them. You can’t teach that. They just did it. That set the tone for the trip.”

“What was beautiful was even though the living conditions were not the best there wasn’t any complaining,” added Eveland (Class of 2004), GT Special Assistant to the Head Coaches since October 2014. “Our water would cut out a couple of hours a day — at one point you just didn’t have water — but instead of people complaining, you just switched over to the water you had in your water bottle.”

Eveland, who speaks fluent Spanish and became a valuable second translator, also was blown away by the student-athletes’ ability to make friends with throngs of local kids that were drawn to them daily. Georgia Tech’s baseball, softball and volleyball teams donated equipment, which was put to good use at pretty much every opportunity.

“The kids were so thrilled and excited that we were just there and willing to play with them,” Eveland said. “You can go anywhere and kids are kids. They just want someone to play with. I think we made them feel special, we made them feel important. It was really fun to see the interaction through the language barrier. A smile says a lot when you can’t speak the language.”

As the student-athletes and the kids spent more time together, bonds were formed and FCA’s mission statement for the trip, “Change of Place + Change of Pace = Change of Perspective,” started to hit home.

“It’s a culture shock,” said sophomore infielder Jessica Kowalewicz. “These people, their hearts are just amazing. For them, success is having relationships, having people they care about and having their families. They don’t care if they have a tin roof over them as long as they have their entire family. That was amazing.”

Each of the student-athletes had a life snapshot that touched their hearts and will never leave them.

“Man, there are so many,” said King. “There was a lady down there that needed blood for one of her children and didn’t have enough money. We were able to raise the money and then we took it to her. Just seeing her face light up when we handed her the money….Her house was not very big but there were 15 of us and she wanted everybody in her house, in this little bitty room just to show us how much she appreciated it. That was an unbelievable sight.”

“There was one day, we were working at a place called Hope Mission, building a foundation with a mission team from South Carolina, to bring in a playground, kind of like a Ronald McDonald House playground,” recalled senior catcher and Student-Athlete Advisory Board Vice President Caitlyn Coffey. “We took a lunch break and all the kids were staring through the fence at us eating. That was heartbreaking in itself. Like, `What are we doing sitting here eating all this food?’ So we saved a quarter of our sandwiches and our chips and we gave it to these kids. One kid came up and said, `Can I have some for my mom?’ I was like, `He has nothing to eat and he wants to give all that we have and he could have to his family because that’s how much it means to him.’ That was one of the more eye-opening experiences.”

Even luxury items like cell phones, the same luxury items which the trip was supposed to discourage, became instruments of bonding.

“I had a little boy and he wanted to take a picture so we took a `selfie’ together,” said senior third baseman Chelsie Thomas, with a laugh. “He wanted to see it and he looked at it and he said, `Me?’ He was shocked about it. It hit me that they don’t have mirrors or phones so he didn’t even know what he looked like. Little things like that just stuck with me. Knowing that we take for granted just seeing ourselves in the mirror, having these phones. That was a big thing that stuck out to me with that little boy. It has really impacted me.”

The impact within the student-athletes themselves may be the long-lasting lesson of the service mission. What started out as groups within a group separated by team (six different teams were represented), with little more than the Georgia Tech logo in common became one, all pulling in the same direction as an unbreakable unit.

“The most evident thing was just the bonding that went on within the athletes from Georgia Tech. That was awesome,” said pitcher Devin Stanton, who had gone on two previous service trips but was making his first with Georgia Tech’s FCA. “You had some volleyball girls, some track girls, some of my teammates, who weren’t really familiar with each other at the beginning, then by the end of the trip, I’d look in the back of the bus and there are two of my teammates sitting with two track girls, cutting up, having fun. That was something that we brought back here. To see them in the lunch room and talk with them there and to see the friendships continue has been cool.”

“There were 20 of us, three chaperones — two FCA, one through the A.A., Kele — and there were four of my teammates and the other 14 or 15 people are from other teams, who I’d maybe say `Hi’ to as I walked through,” said Coffey. “Now we’re all best friends. We built that community in five days with each other. When you go through things like that and you kind of see a different culture and see how well we have it, even when you think you’re having a bad day — we get injured or sore or tired — these people are without clothes and homeless and walking on the streets. Those are things we take for granted. So seeing that together and having that community to be like, `What are we doing? Why can’t we be more positive and impact more people?’ I think that’s a goal of ours now, especially through SAAB and the athletic community as a whole.”

The student-athletes have not only improved their relationships with each other but also their individual perspectives.

“It blew my mind, honestly. You think you’re going over there to change their lives but they end up changing yours,” said freshman outfielder Draven Sonnon. “The conditions there were crazy. Them being so happy with so little was really crazy and it made us open our eyes to what really mattered.”

All of them have gone back to their teammates and have recruited them to go on a service trip.

“Oh yes. I’ve already been recruiting people on my team to go,” said junior track athlete Donjhae Jones. “The trip is amazing. It’s life-changing. I feel like everybody should have that experience. I realized that a part of me is, I guess I could say, selfish. Coming back I wanted to make sure that when I do things I don’t want to just think about myself in doing them. I want to think about how it’s going to affect other people and how I can benefit other people’s lives. Over there I learned that it’s more of showing love to others, not being so self-centered, making sure you make connections with people, smile at them because that can brighten somebody’s day instead of being so focused on studying and only talking to the people in your class or talking to the people on the team. Giving more of myself to others.”

For more information on the Fellowship of Christian Athletes visit: http://gtchaplain.publishpath.com/ or call 404 229-5413.

The Office of Student Services strives to establish a commitment of service to others as a foundation for a balanced student-athlete lifestyle. Student-athletes at Florida State are challenged to provide service to the community and individuals who are in need. With a clearly defined program of service, student-athletes are given the opportunity to develop a lifelong commitment to volunteerism. On any day of the week you can find any number of the Seminoles giving back to the community. It is with great honor that each and every year Florida State University and the Department of Athletics continues this commitment of service to the community.

January was a very busy month in the community service department for multiple teams including football and women’s soccer. Everyone was involved in community service activities ranging from 5K’s to visiting children at elementary schools.

Football season might be over, but community service is just beginning for some players. January is recognized as National Literacy Month and the ‘Noles visited Springwood Elementary on January 15th, 2015 to partake in some reading activities. Players read books to the elementary school students and expressed the importance of reading.

Not only was the football team taking part in literacy month, but the sand volleyball team contributed as well. On January 26th, 2015, they went to Ft. Baden Elementary School. Just like the football players, the sand volleyball players advocated the importance of reading and then read to the young students.

The Seminole soccer team joined in on National Literacy Month visiting Oak Ridge Elementary School on January 28th, 2015. The reigning National Champions read to the young students and encouraged them to read more.

On January 20th, 2015, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital dedicated a family playroom to FSU’s very own Mike Martin. The “Mike Martin Family Playroom” is in honor of the Martin’s generous donation to the Children’s Center. Players Josh Delph and Hank Truluck were on hand at the event to lend their support to the longtime coach.

January is just the start of all the community service activities Florida State will be partaking in during the 2015 spring semester. Stay tuned to Seminoles.com for further updates on the ‘Noles in the Community throughout the spring semester.

Other Community Service Activities for January 2015
Softball (January 22, 2015)

Visited Tallahassee Seminole Club
o Players spoke to club members about being FSU student-athletes

Women’s Basketball (January 24, 2015)

Participated in the 2015 Trent Trot 5k
o Helped participants get ready for the race
o Organized raise start up

Women’s Soccer (January 27, 2015)

Visited Trinity Catholic School
o Sportsmanship Ceremony
o Student-athletes discussed the importance of Sportsmanship

Members of the Florida State football team visit Springwood Elementary

Members of the Florida State soccer team visit Oak Ridge Elementary

To read more please visit: http://www.seminoles.com/