The Nevada Sagebrush

Student volunteers Philip Lynam and Maryanne Seneviratne work in the Food Bank of Northern Nevada near Fernley. The two and the club they belong to, the National Residence Hall Honorary, were part of a surge of volunteers, both student and otherwise, before the Thanksgiving holiday. Photo by Jay Balagna.

Almost 40 students from two student clubs clustered in the middle of a large warehouse about 20 minutes east of Reno Saturday afternoon.

Sifting through donated food for expired items and packing it all into boxes, the groups, which brought more people than the Food Bank of Northern Nevada planned for, finished what had been set aside to take them the entire afternoon in a few hours.

Together, the clubs packed 275 boxes of donated food, enough to feed 625 people, the food bank volunteer assigned to the clubs said.

The two clubs are part of a number of student organizations at the University of Nevada, Reno that spend hours volunteering to make sure needy families around Reno, and even students on campus who can’t make it home, don’t go hungry or alone this Thanksgiving.

While Nevada ranks low in volunteering rates, Reno ranks much higher than the rest of the state and comes much closer to the national average of volunteers per capita, according to the 2008 Volunteering in America Report from the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal department that tracks and promotes volunteer work. The report was compiled using data from the United States Census Bureau.

According to the report, Nevada is last in volunteering rates while Reno ranks 20th among 75 midsized cities.

The closing weeks of the fall semester are a common time for many non-service-oriented student clubs to volunteer in the community. Organizations relying on volunteering see a surge of volunteers during that time, close to both Thanksgiving and the winter holidays, in all age groups, including students.

“Something about this time of year makes people think about (volunteering) more,” Jocelyn Lantrip, a spokesperson for the Food Bank of Northern Nevada, said.

The clubs at the food bank, the National Residence Hall Honorary and the National Society of Leadership and Success, had no service requirement they had to fill and it was not mandatory for members who attended.

“We just wanted to go do something, service-wise,” Nikki Grey, the president of NSLS, said. “We decided November was a good time to do it because of Thanksgiving and the holidays.”

Grey said that her club, which focuses on teaching leadership to its members, thought it was important to do something to reach out to people in Reno, even if it was in a small way like packing boxes of food.

“We did it now, instead of waiting until later in December, because we wanted to make sure enough people were here to help,” she said. “If we waited, people might be gone on break.”

The clubs were part of a yearly spike in volunteers the food bank experiences.

“(The spike in volunteering is) OK, though, because we usually have a lot more food and a lot more to do around the holidays,” Lantrip said.

The annual spike in volunteering helped to boost the Reno area to the top third of the 75 midsized cities surveyed in service hours per capita, according to the Volunteering in America Report. Las Vegas, the only other city in Nevada surveyed for the report, ranked last in the same category among major cities.

This week the Student United Way, another club on campus, will also distribute nine turkeys, with other food to make complete Thanksgiving dinners, to needy families around Reno. The club spent the last few weeks soliciting donations from area stores to put together the dinners and will deliver them to families Tuesday.

On campus, the goals of one club are less about the actual Thanksgiving food than the family atmosphere some students who are unable to travel home will be missing this week.

To help fix that, The Native American Student Organization will host a free Thanksgiving dinner for students Thursday.

Native American Student Organization member Michelle Ramirez, who does not have a family to celebrate the holidays with, said she would like to help students who are in similar situations and do not want to spend the holiday alone.

The group plans to have meals available for about 300 students in two sessions on Thanksgiving Day. Any extra food will be donated to the Reno Sparks Gospel Mission that night.

“We want to provide a nice meal and a chance to socialize and not be alone on this day,” Ramirez said.

Nevada Sagebrush reporter Tara Verderosa contributed reporting to this story. Jay Balagna can be reached at jbalagna@nevadasagebrush.com.

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