Strengthen and Celebrate Service and Community Outreach

The Center for Community Outreach (CCO) encourages ethical volunteerism in our local and global communities. To do so we engage students by providing meaningful service opportunities, responding to community needs, organizing semi-annual days of service, developing volunteer management skills, and supporting community initiatives and non-profits through collaborative partnerships. Moreover, our thirteen different programs each focus on a specific community need and, in doing so, provide meaningful service opportunities for students, address various needs through collaborative partnerships, and empower our community through education and advocacy. 

“I want to thank you and the CCO for providing such a wonderful opportunity for students to receive music lessons who otherwise couldn’t afford to! … I know firsthand how quickly the cost of learning an instrument can add up for families and I often wondered what low- and mid-income families would do to support their child’s desire to learn a musical instrument. …This program made me so happy!” - Music Mentor Parent 

Your support would be used to fund Super Service Saturday, our annual day of service, with excess funds being distributed amongst our thirteen programs. To address the former, Super Service Saturday (SSS)  is the CCO’s one-day service event that occurs every fall. This event functions to connect KU students to community organizations - many of whom the CCO partners with - and to give back to the Lawrence community through direct service. In greater detail, each student who participates in Super Service is assigned to a volunteer group, bussed out to the corresponding volunteer site, and then serves that partner’s specific need(s) for two hours.

In a discussion of the impact of SSS, last year we had 20-25 sites and ~450 students participating, for a total of ~900 service hours recorded. In addition, many of the students who participate stay engaged with the CCO throughout the remaining year and tend to engage more in our other volunteering opportunities. Thus, your help funding SSS would bolster the volunteer base at KU and help empower and support the Douglas Community.