Bethel Prepar­ing for Ser­vice Day

MISHAWAKA- Ser­vice Day is com­ing up on Sept. 27. 

Ser­vice Day is a Bethel event where stu­dents go out to serve the com­mu­nity at dif­fer­ent or­ga­ni­za­tions across the Mishawaka area. The first Bethel Ser­vice Day oc­curred in 1988 and has been oc­cur­ring an­nu­ally ever since, ex­cept for 2020 due to COVID-19 com­pli­ca­tions. All stu­dents are re­quired to at­tend, and fac­ulty and staff are al­ways wel­come to as well.  

Some lo­ca­tions avail­able this year in­clude Unity Gar­dens, Camp Ray Bird, St. Mar­garet’s House and many more. Many lo­ca­tions deal with land­scap­ing and gar­den­ing, oth­ers in­clude cook­ing and dec­o­rat­ing.  

Anas­ta­sia Dekker, a stu­dent worker in the Ser­vice Learn­ing Of­fice, is help­ing to or­ga­nize the event. 

“The zoo and St. Paul’s fill up re­ally quick,” Dekker said about pop­u­lar lo­ca­tions. “A lot of neigh­bor’s houses and or­ga­ni­za­tion houses too.” 

Ser­vice Day is an im­por­tant rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Bethel’s com­mu­nity-mo­ti­vated cul­ture. 

“The stu­dents get to be a part of some­thing big­ger than them­selves,” Dekker said. “They like to go out to serve and see the dif­fer­ence that they made.” 

For any ques­tions you can email the Ser­vice Learn­ing Of­fice at ser­vice­learn­ing@bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu.