Student Feature: YSU students uniting in serving their community

FEATURE STORY

Story by: Trey Turner, Master of Arts in Professional Communication

At Youngstown State University, students are not only driven by academic goals, they’re also passionate about lending a helping hand to the Youngstown community.

Jordan Pintar of Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, a junior Philosophy major and President of YSU’s Student Government Association helps to organize various community engagement opportunities for SGA and its members to participate in.

“One of the first events that comes to mind is the campus cleanups,” said Pintar. “It’s a volunteer opportunity for all students on campus to hang out, walk around campus and pick up trash together that immediately beautifies the area. This brings the students together and helps them get to know each other, all while bettering the community and picking up trash.”

So far, SGA has also organized off-campus cleanups at Wick Park, but Pintar is hoping to expand this effort downtown this fall.

“Another thing we did was bring a Little Free Library to campus,” Pintar said. “We are partnered with the Rotary Club of Youngstown, which is amazing. They are a great community partner that cares about education, literacy and reading in our community. It's a really cool project that is a great reflection of what the community is reading.”

Pintar is looking ahead, in anticipation of the upcoming presidential election.

“Since we have a big upcoming election year, we are looking to continue our campus vote project in the Fall,” reflected Pintar on the efforts led by SGA for the midterm elections. “We were able to have the mayor, the prosecutor’s office and city council members come to campus and answer student questions which was a really great conversation, resulting in a lot of feedback from the people running our city.”

“We also have a large population of international students who might not be familiar with the American voting process,” continued Pintar. “It's a great way to really show what our community does. It enables students to recognize those friendly faces whenever they see them.”

Vincent DeSanto of Newton Falls, Ohio, a junior majoring in Finance, is the vice president of YSU’s Sigma Chi fraternity. The funds raised by Sigma Chi through its efforts are directed to the Huntsman Cancer Foundation, Sigma Chi’s national partner.

“Our funding goes toward the research and development of new cancer treatments as well as medical expenses for underprivileged patients and their families,” DeSanto explained. “Last year, nationally, our fraternity was able to build a woman's ward to help with women's specific cancers.”

“I had the opportunity to visit the Huntsman Institute last summer and it was inspiring,” mentioned DeSanto. “They explained to us that the institute has found more genetic types of cancer within DNA for early detection than anywhere else in the world. It's awesome that our proceeds go toward research like that.”

Sigma Chi hosts the annual charity concert, “Roquacade,” which is its biggest fundraising effort each year.

“Usually four local bands volunteer to perform at the concert and we also sell Chinese auction baskets, t- shirts and admission tickets,” explained DeSanto.

Sigma Chi participates in various community service opportunities, such as serving concessions at Cleveland Browns games. The funds it received for these games were directly donated to the Huntsman Foundation. In the 2022-2023 academic year, Sigma Chi raised over $11,000, one of the highest earnings within YSU’s Greek Life and are on the path to raise even more in the 2023-2024 year.

Another student involved in Greek Life at YSU is Ella Hazy. Hazy of Canfield, senior Anthropology major, is in the Delta Zeta sorority and serves as president of YSU’s chapter of Order of Omega, which is a national honors society for members of Greek Life organizations.

Order of Omega is offered to the top five percent of students actively engaged in Greek Life. To qualify, students must have junior or senior standing and maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0.

As president, Hazy helps plan events for the society's annual event, Greeks In the Streets, which is a weekend full of service opportunities for Greek Life members.

“This year, we are going to Dorothy Day House, Wick Park cleanup events and we’ll be helping out with the Youngstown Rotary Club,” said Hazy. “In the past we helped with Dorothy Day House by cleaning up their garage and helping with beautification outside.”

Hazy also participates in community service as an honors student, serving as an active member of the Dr. Abdu Pen Pals Program which connects honors students with local elementary students through a regular journal exchange. Since 2012, pairs of students have been writing journal entries biweekly, which are transported between the schools by honors student volunteers and staff.

Hazy said she and her pen pal talk about what they are doing in school, what they are working on and how their weeks are going. “The Penguin Pen Pals is a super fun thing to do,” said Hazy. “I love my Pen Pal, she is so awesome and it is just a lot of fun.”

Though, Hazy isn’t the only honors student staying active in the community.

Avinab De of Sanford, Florida, a sophomore in the YSU BaccMed program, worked diligently to found and now sits as president for the YSU Red Cross Club.

“I have been involved with the Red Cross since high school. I’ve volunteered at blood drives and donated blood as well,” De said. “When I joined YSU, I remember going to the Honors College and asking, ‘How can I set up something similar to what I had in high school?’”

After meeting with Honors College staff, De successfully launched the student Red Cross Club.

“I act as a representative of the Red Cross and that allows the student organization to set up blood drives, CPR training and first aid training on campus,” explained De. “We have also partnered with Summa Health to set up training sessions and Mercy Health to recruit donors and volunteers.”

“We don’t need funds to run these trainings because everything is sponsored by the Red Cross, which makes it easier for the students to focus on spreading the mission of the Red Cross on campus,” De said.

The primary mission of the Red Cross Club is to set up blood drives for the community. Additionally, those who take the CPR training courses get a two year certification from the Red Cross.

“Blood is really important and not many people know, a single donation can save up to three lives,” explained De. “We always have promotions to incentivize donating blood, for example, this month, we're going to have a promotion with the new Godzilla movie.”

Similarly Tanya Pai Dhungat of Canfield, a first-year student also in the BaccMed program, jumped right into community service at YSU by bringing back Students for Sight, an organization that had dissolved during COVID. Pai Dhungat wanted to bring back the student organization after volunteering for a local non-profit, Sight for All United, which provides affordable vision care to community members.

“Our mission is to spread awareness for vision needs and about vision problems that exist,” explained Pai Dhungat. “We also want to spread awareness to students that Sight for All United exists, so if there are students who are uninsured or under-insured — which is a majority of the time — Sight for All United is an option they can utilize.”

Pai Dhungat organized a bake sale as the inaugural event for Students for Sight, astonished by the results.

“We sold a lot, we raised $500 in just five hours and we were also able to hand out Sight for All United pamphlets to educate students, so that’s pretty great,” Pai Dhungat said.

Students for Sight recently held a “pie in the face” fundraiser in which students could pay to pie their peers or faculty. The funds from the event were donated to Sight for All United.

The vision van, an initiative created by Sight for All United, provides free eye exams and prescription glasses for students K - 12 to eliminate vision barriers in the area.

“My goal for next semester is to bring the vision van to campus,”Pai Dhungat said. “A lot of students are under-insured and it may be hard for them to receive an eye exam, so I want to bring the vision van to the YSU campus.”

Brooklyn Kirpatrick of Broomfield, Colorado, senior nursing student and a member of the YSU women’s soccer team, is passionate about volunteer work. Kirkpatrick serves on the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, which is made of representatives from each athletic team and meets once a month to plan athletic events on campus.

“We are the voices of each team to come together and solve problems,” Kirkpatrick said. “The soccer team takes a lot of pride in being involved in community engagement, our program emphasizes the importance of community service in the recruitment process.”

Kirkpatrick and other members of the soccer team volunteer their time working concessions at the Covelli Center, coordinating an annual holiday toy drive and assisting with ticketing at local high school football games.

“We want to reach out to the community and let them know about YSU and support the youth,” explained Kirkpatrick.“SAAC also organizes a lot of community service opportunities,” said Kirkpatrick. “We have coordinated canned food drives, clothing drives and recently we held a successful pajama drive called Penguins for PJs, collecting over 150 pairs of pajamas for Akron Children’s Hospital and the local hospital.”

YSU students remain committed to their efforts in building a better community, partaking in various efforts to serve the community and organizations that make up the Youngstown area and beyond. For those interested in getting involved, contact YSU’s Office of Community Engagement at communityengagement@ysu.edu.