Students always welcome a day at the beach, especially when the temperature pushes 80 degrees. But on a warm, September Saturday afternoon, the 300 Gannon University students at Presque Isle State Park had work, not play, on their minds.
They were among the more than 1,000 students arrayed at 50 sites in Erie and the alumni participants that spanned 11 cities across the nation, including Atlanta and Chicago, for the 16th annual GIVE (Gannon's Invitation to Volunteer Everywhere) Day.
A couple of miles away at Asbury Woods Nature Center, students collected 128 lbs. of trash and 33 lbs. of recycling.
Closer to campus at Gridley Park, the men's basketball team, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Phi Eta Sigma and Provost Carolynn Masters, Ph.D., RN beautified the park, which is at the heart of the neighborhood in the Erie-GAINS-sponsored Our West Bayfront initiative. And there was much more.
Members of Beta Beta Beta, the national biology honor society, prepared the Gannon Goodwill Garden for the winter and hopefully for another productive season of supplying fresh produce to local food banks.
At the Erie Veterans Administration Medical Center, members of the Gannon chapter of Students Behind Our Troops and Alpha Sigma Alpha cleaned vans used to transport veterans to medical appointments. The brothers and sisters of Tau Kappa Epsilon and Alpha Tau Delta performed a neighborhood survey to support the Sisters of Saint Joseph Neighborhood Network-East.
When Gannon GIVEs, everybody benefits.