CLEVELAND, Ga. (TMSports) – Members of Truett-McConnell College athletic teams spent 5,314 hours serving local communities during the 2013-14 school year, nearly 4,000 more hours than the previous year.

From packing backpacks with food for needy children to reading to elementary aged students, TMC athletes have made serving their local communities a priority.

“At Truett-McConnell, community service is a vital part of our educational process for our student-athletes,” said Truett-McConnell’s Director of Athletics Dr. Stacy Hall. Hall encourages each athletic team to invest into the local community because “it allows our student-athletes to become familiar with real life issues facing our community and puts them in a position to minister to others’ needs.”

Building relationships is another reason Hall encourages the athlete’s involvement: “It allows us to build relationships throughout the community which in turn, provides us opportunities to share the gospel with them.”

The athletic department’s student led community service organization, Bears in the Community, helped lead the way by managing each athletic team’s collaborative service efforts: “From yard work to mentor-ships to food service, we feel responsible to give back to a community that is so supportive of our school and athletic programs,” said the organizations president and senior baseball player, Hayden Fleming.

“We see our roles both on campus and in the community as platforms to reach out to others who are in need and I am very grateful for the opportunity to work alongside such a great group of athletes who have answered the call to serve others.”

The women’s soccer team fronted the entire athletic department’s efforts with nearly 2,000 service hours. “I am blessed to have such a strong and wonderful group of ladies as I do,” said head women’s soccer coach David McDowell. “These ladies are committed to serving others and impacting people with the gospel; I believe their service is an outpouring of where their hearts are, and their acts of love are reflective of their relationship with Christ.”

Brooke Reed, a sophomore and member of the Lady Bears Soccer Team, shared the why behind her team’s acts of service as she referenced Matthew 20:28 which says, “Even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.” “We don’t just do community service in order to gain recognition for doing good,” Reed said, “we do it because God calls us to take care of the poor and needy.”

Reed was with a group who visited the University of South Alabama Women’s and Children’s Hospital earlier in their season where members of the Lady Bears Soccer Team spent time playing games with children. “It was so rewarding seeing the big smiles on the kids’ faces when we walked into their room with a game of some sort,” she said. “Hearing their laughter and seeing their smiles was just a wonderful thing to experience.”

The Men’s Cross Country team spent nearly 800 hours involved in local service; one project that stuck out to Bears Cross Country runner and a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) National Championship contestant, Luis Gonzalez, was filling backpacks with canned food and encouraging messages alongside Straight Street Ministries in Gainesville, Ga., which would later be delivered to local schools. Gonzalez said filling the backpacks reminded him that “there are so many people right in our back yard that need help and how a few hours of one’s time can mean so much.”

“Things like this are important because I know what it is like growing up in a situation where you don’t necessarily have everything,” Gonzalez said. “A helping hand from a kind stranger means so much.”

Other teams participated in various projects such as: passing out food in a local food drive, compiling Christmas stockings for children, canvasing neighborhoods, baking goods for a local ministry, volunteering at Choices pregnancy center, conducting golf lessons for local special education classes, working alongside Habitat for Humanity, distributing food at a local food bank, and many others.

If you know of a local service opportunity in need of volunteers, visit the community service request page on tmcbears.com.

DESTIN, Fla. — The Sun Belt Conference held its annual honors banquet Tuesday night in Destin, Fla., where WKU accepted its all-sports championship trophy and soccer student-athlete Torrie Lange was named to the conference’s leadership team.

The Bubas Cup, named for the Sun Belt Conference’s first commissioner, Vic Bubas, is given annually to the conference school that accumulates the most points throughout the athletic year based on its finish in the league standings in each sport. WKU won Sun Belt Conference championships in soccer, volleyball, women’s basketball, women’s indoor track and field and women’s outdoor track and field in 2013-14, with baseball still to be completed.

With men’s and women’s swimming competing in Conference USA in 2013-14, WKU won the Bubas Cup with only 17 sports scoring points towards the total. In total, 10 WKU teams finished in the top-three of their respective league standings in 2013-14.

In addition to the conference awards being handed out Tuesday evening, Lange was named to the Sun Belt Conference Leadership Team. The team is made up of a letterwinning student-athlete from each conference institution based on leadership, sportsmanship, community service, citizenship, academic excellence and other key qualities valued by the institution.

WKU’s student-athletes graduate at a 70 percent clip, which is 20 percent higher than the rest of the university student body. WKU student-athletes, coaches and staff completed over 1,000 hours of community service in 2013-14, and WKU has had more student-athletes honored by the Sun Belt Conference for academic achievement than any other conference school for nine-consecutive years.

For more information on WKU Athletics, visit WKUSports.com or follow the athletic department via social media @WKUSports on Twitter and on Facebook at facebook.com/WKUAthletics.

It was another successful stop during a Yuma Community Food Bank for Arizona State University tyro athletes on a Sun Devil Caravan Tour.

The module brings athletes from a university opposite Arizona to proffer during food banks and other gift organizations, and a organisation visited a Yuma Community Food Bank Monday afternoon.

“It feels good to be home and still be means to assistance out,” says Pablo Moreno, a Sun Devil wrestler who graduated from Cibola High School.

“I didn’t know about a necessity of food in Yuma and around a state and around a nation and only to assistance and give behind means a lot,” says Qasim Sani, a parsimonious finish on a ASU football team. “Now i can go and tell my friends to support their internal food drives.”

Arizona State alum and stream Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls stopped by to uncover his support.

“My time during ASU was a lot of fun, we schooled a lot, though we also gave behind a lot and we consider this is a only a delay of that tradition in my mind.”

The food bank is kicking off their “Stock Our Shelves” campaign, and their idea is to have 50,000 pounds of food to feed a needy by Sep 1st.

Source: http://www.azonlinenews.com/yuma/asu-athletes-give-back/

On Friday, May 16, 2014 some of our Warrior student athletes volunteered their time with the Huber Heights Youth. The Valley Forge Elementary Annual Fun-a-val was an event where families could come and have fun playing games and activities. This year we decided to have our athletes participate in the event. A total of 11 athletes came to selflessly spend time mentoring and bringing smiles. The cheerleaders taught cheers and skills to youth. The football and baseball players signed autographs and visited with fans.

The most valuable lesson we can teach our student athletes is to always be community-minded. Give back to your community as much as you can. You never know when you can make a positive life-long impact on the future of the Wayne Warriors and Huber Heights. Please view our photo galleries as well as a video from our athletes explaining what it meant to be involved in a great event! GO WAYNE!!

Source: http://waynewarriorathletics.com/2014/05/19/wayne-athletes-volunteer-at-the-valley-forge-fun-a-val/

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (May 17, 2014) – In addition to winning the ECC Commissioner’s Cup, LIU Post was named the recipient of the 2014 ECC Cares Award. The accolade is given to the school that raises the most money per student-athlete for collective causes in an academic year.

The Pioneer family collected just under $20,000 for causes in 2013-14. They participated in a number of fundraisers, including the Women’s Achievers Breakfast, Relay For Life, Coaches vs. Cancer and Wounded Warrior Project. On Apr. 5, the LIU Post men’s lacrosse team brought in over $5,000 for the Cancer Center for Kids at Winthrop University Hospital, as part of its “Team Connor” initiative.