For Heather Colwell, service makes sense.
“There are so many problems going on around us,” Colwell said. “If you”re in the privileged position to help those who are less fortunate than you, you should.”
That”s why Colwell got involved with the University of Idaho Center for Volunteerism and Social Action, which coordinates the annual Make a Difference Day. This year, UI students went to 23 locations in the Moscow-Pullman area to volunteer, including the Hope Center, the Moscow Community Garden and Backyard Harvest.
Irish Martos | Argonaut
Jessica Darney volunteers for Make a Difference Day, sorting clothes by age for Homes of Hope on Saturday in Lewiston.
Saturday was Colwell”s first time being a Make a Difference Day site leader.
While UI students volunteered across the Moscow and Pullman area, Colwell and about a dozen men made their way to the Idaho Commons food court to assemble dried soup packets with Homestead Ministries.
Homestead is a non-profit that purchases beans, lentils and peas that are not up to market grade and would otherwise be thrown away. With the help of volunteers, the beans and spices are assembled into soup packets and are then distributed to food banks and pantries across the Palouse, said Moscow Attorney Ellis Eifert.
Eifert has worked with the organization since they began a year and a half ago. He said Make a Difference Day was one of the smaller events he has been to, but everything makes a difference.
“We depend on people like this,” Eifert said. “The six to seven of us can”t do it on our own – we need volunteers.”
Though there were only about a dozen men volunteering after two and a half hours of work, they had packaged about 600 pounds of product, or about 3,000 meals, Eifert said.
Cole Kubosumi volunteers at Make a Difference Day with his fraternity every year. He said everyone has their own reason for volunteering, but for him, he just wants to give back to the university that has given so much to him.
“I get to volunteer with a bunch of great guys. It”s fun to get the assembly line going,” Kubosumi said. “This year was a lot of fun.”
At the end of the morning, as the group finished cleaning up, Colwell gathered the men to go over reflection questions.
Eifert”s announcement of how many meals they made was met with whoops and applause.
“So will you guys volunteer more in the future?” Colwell asked.
The question was met with a resounding affirmative.
Before the men were dismissed, Eifert extended a final thank you.
“This is going to have a huge impact for a lot of people around here,” he said.
Hannah Shirley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @itshannah7