University of the Ozarks
Mentor Program
2003-2004

Community Service Opportunities

All groups are required to do at least one community service project.
The hours students spend on these projects may also be counted for community service hours required by scholarships. Many students have scholarships that require 10-20 hours of community each term and most students new to the community might be expected to have difficulty figuring out how to meet this requirement. Providing a variety of community service opportunities for your group will aid them greatly in this venture.


Organization	Contact	Description of Activity
Angel Tree Project	UofO Women	Buy Christmas presents for low-income children
Clarksville Housing Authority*	Sara Stucky 479-754-3564	Assisting elderly with home & garden maintenance
Habitat for Humanity	Julia Frost, x1401	Assist with building homes for lower-income families. Methodist Campus Ministries has scheduled two HfH Saturdays for the Fall term--October 18 and November 1--and, with notice, are usually willing to have other students participate.
Meals on Wheels	George Pittenger, UofO coordinator, x1400	UofO has one week a month during which it delivers meals on pre-determined routes to the elderly who are shut-in. The meals are picked up at the Johnson County Senior Center on Cemetery Rd., where the kitchen staff prepares the meals.
Needy Paws Animal Shelter**	Delana Davis, 754-4200	Walking dogs, playing with cats, giving baths, cleaning facility. Hours of operation are T-F 1-5 p.m. (Tuesday tends to be busy; Wed., Thurs. or Fri. are better times to visit.
Nursing Homes		Visiting with elderly
Spadra Creek Trail Maintenance	Doug Jeffries, x1359	Rebuilding eroded portions of trail; clearing non-native vegetation
UofO Recycling Program***	UofO Planet Club	Sorting and collecting recyclables on campus

*Clarksville Housing Authority—this is a new opportunity: The Housing Authority has units (homes) where elderly and/or disabled persons are unable to wash their windows, pull weeds from flower beds, so on and so forth. If a professor would like to bring his/her class down to do this some time, they would love to have them. CHA would provide all cleaning/work materials. At times, there is also playground equipment that needs painting or common areas that need cleaned up, picking up trash, etc.

The main office is located at 605 Lucas Street. There are 173 units spread out through different streets; Lucas, Oak, Ash, Elm, Patton Circle, Lucas Circle, and Poplar Circle. The majority of the elderly or handicapped units are on Lucas Circle and Poplar Circle.

Please call if you have any questions, or would like to have your group participate.

CONTACT: Sara Stucky, Administrative Assistant, Clarksville Housing Authority, P.O. Box 407. Clarksville, AR 72830; telephone 479-754-3564

Listed below are some of the specific projects with which the CHA would appreciate assistance: Anyone interested in working on any of these projects may contact Sara Stuckey at the above number.

August

Fence Row on Poplar Circle - this project will take several days to complete. This will involved teamwork of someone using a rake to pull weeds away from the fence while the other person cuts with a trimmer.

September

Fence Row - same as above

Painting Basketball Poles on Patton Circle Playground - there are only 4 large poles, this could be completed within a class period.

Painting & sanding two pavilions on Poplar Circle - depending upon number of students this could take 1 to 2 hours.

Cleaning Windows for Elderly & Disabled - This project could take a several hours depending on how many units we reach. This is a project that can be started and stopped with different classes, we can can a list of what has been cleaned before next class participates. We can make arrangements to complete after 4:00 p.m. or on a Saturday.

October

Raking Leaves & Gum Balls - This can be completed as often as a class is willing to participate and this can be done within a class time period.

Fence Row - This project is the same as mentioned earlier and will take a while to complete.

November

Raking Leaves & Gum Balls - Same as mentioned above. This would be VERY IMPORTANT at this time.

December

Raking

Cleaning Out Flower Beds - this can be done during class period because the beds are small and as students complete the task we can keep up with what still needs to be done.

General/Anytime

An ongoing project that we would most enjoy would be the class members coming down for a couple of hours in the early evening and having a social time with our elderly residents. We would provide refreshments. We would play music, have Karaoke and/or read poetry, as well as just visiting with our residents. Dancing with the residents, talking, just providing a listening ear would be an invaluable service. Students could earn time setting up for the event as well as participating during the event.

Meeting Elderly Tenants' Material Needs

There are 85 elderly tenants in the CHA development, many on fixed incomes and unable to afford groceries and other items. Any contributions from the CI groups toward fulfilling these needs would be appreciated.

The students could collect food, meet in the CHA community center and divide food into 85 care packages and then staff members could take the students to the elderly homes for package deliveries.

Items they could use would be:

Shampoo & Conditioner

Soap

Lotions - most elderly have dry skin so this is important.

Toilet Paper

Q-Tips

Canned foods such as: Tuna, salmon, spam, chili, soups, Vienna sausages, and especially canned fruits.

Any non-perishable food item would work, beans, cornbread mix, box rice dishes, noodle food items, peanut butter, jelly, crackers, honey, syrup, pancake mix, cake mixes, canned milk, etc.

When they give a tenant food, they try to provide five (5) partial meals. A typical bag would include: 1 can tuna, 1 can Vienna sausage, 1 sleeve crackers, 2 cans soup, 2 cans fruit and a box of cereal if we have it.

Cleaning supplies are an expense that can be hard on an elderly tenant. Dow Scrubbing Bubbles Bathroom Cleaner, Comet, Toilet Bowl Cleaner, Pine Sol, Dishwashing Liquid, Laundry Detergent, Bleach, Fabric Softener, so on and so forth are some items they might could use.

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**Needy Paws: It is better for the shelter if we coordinate our efforts by submitting a schedule of visits for all interested sections. A sign-up sheet will be available during the workshop.

***Recycling: The Planet Club has asked if they could send a representative to each mentor section sometime this term to explain the recycling program and solicit assistance from sections in collecting and sorting recycles for the program. If you would like to have a member come to your class or, even better, sign up your group to help, a sign-up sheet will be available at the workshop.