Kent State's Football team and other Kent State students volunteered at Campus Kitchen's March food distribution in collaboration with the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank Wednesday, March 17, at Dix Stadium. This volunteer opportunity will continue on the third Wednesday of every month through June, thanks to a food bank grant from Feeding America. Additionally, Campus Kitchen student volunteers hold food pantries in Tri-Towers three times per week as well and support the food pantry within the Office of the Dean of Students.

CommUNITY Lab is a new four-year cohort program coordinated through Community Engaged Learning that offers scholars a network of care and resources while removing financial, academic, and personal barriers to success. Participants reside in a Living-Learning Community located in Lake Hall on the Kent Campus where they learn through specially selected courses, plug into campus resources and co-create individualized achievement plans with their support networks.

Kristin Williams, the Executive Director of Career Exploration and Development, will be sharing these developmental student internship experiences with regional employment leaders at the SIM Cleveland panel discussion on November 8th.

Students have endless volunteer opportunities with University College's Campus Kitchen. The Campus Kitchen, in collaboration with the Office of Sustainability, won the 2021 Campus Race to Zero Waste case study competition in the “Summary of Waste Reduction Efforts” category.

Students can now attend educational, volunteer, and activism events through a new series called Weeks of Change organized by Community Engaged Learning where one week every month will be dedicated to a particular social issue.

50 Student volunteers engaged in Community Engaged Learning’s annual Make a Difference Day, planned by Imani Reynolds, Coordinator of Community Engaged Learning, and Maggie Allphin, Graduate Assistant.

Students now have the opportunity to volunteer in-person together for 1.5 hours on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons through Community Engaged Learning’s new Service in a Flash program. Activities have included upcycling t-shirts to make tote bags for food pantries and cutting fabric to make face masks for all students in Kent local schools.

Many of our Flashes volunteer for Kent State’s Campus Kitchen, run by Community Engaged Learning, which raised over $25,000 in donations to fund a mobile food pantry, making operations more effective and impactful.

Helping those in need, Kent State’s Campus Kitchen provided 4,500 hours of service, 81,321 lbs. of food, and 28,294 lbs. of food pantry distribution to community members in need.

The I AM FIRST Celebration honored first generation students, staff, and faculty with a week of university-wide events. Attendees from all parts of the Kent State community enjoyed the week’s in-person and virtual events.