Buenafication Day Provides 4,000 Hours of Service
An estimated 1,460 faculty, staff, college students and students from Storm Lake Community School District and Storm Lake St. Mary's participated in Buena Vista University's 103nd annual Buenafication Day on April 28, contributing 4,000 hours of community service.
An estimated 1,460 faculty, staff, college students and students from Storm Lake Community School District (SLCSD) and Storm Lake St. Mary’s (SLSM) participated in Buena Vista University’s 103nd annual Buenafication Day on April 28, contributing 4,000 hours of community service.
“Buenafication Day is a perfect example of community,” said Dr. Ashley Farmer-Hanson, assistant dean for student life and director of civic engagement at BVU. “We were able to provide wonderful opportunities for St. Mary’s, Storm Lake Community School District and BVU students to engage in service with local nonprofits and businesses. Not many places can say that multiple levels of government, for-profit, nonprofit, religious and non-religious organization have come together to make our community better. It is a great way to continue to develop partnerships, meet people’s needs and start dreaming about ways to do more in the future.”
According to Farmer-Hanson, each volunteer hour is estimated to be worth $23.05 by the Independent Sector, so it is estimated that the day’s community service was an investment of $92,200 in the Storm Lake community.
This year, approximately 54 BVU departments, student organizations, athletic teams and SLCSD and SLSM groups volunteered service at 40 locations on campus and throughout the Storm Lake community, which included spring clean-up projects, landscaping, assembling 335 medical kits, washing vehicles at the Alta Fire Department and more activities at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center, the Buena Vista County Fairgrounds and the TLC Animal Shelter.
BVU Against Poverty put together care packages for First Aid by packing rice meals. The group packaged 5,829 meals within two hours, which will be provided to families in the Storm Lake area. Many students also contributed to the Sole Hope project where patterns are cut out from jeans and milk cartons and shipped abroad. They are later combined to create shoes for those in need, decreasing the rate of foot diseases primarily caused by jiggers.
BVU’s Association Computing Machinery club brought their Partners In Excellence SLCSD fourth grade class to campus where they attended the opening ceremonies, learned about computer coding and cleaned up campus. BVU athletic teams and organizations then visited the after school program where they made crafts, competed in track, corn hole and Giant Jenga games, played in gigantic inflatable balls with the BVU wrestling team and much more. “We appreciate Buena Vista University continuing to provide this opportunity for our students to serve the community during Buenafication Day,” said SLCSD superintendent Dr. Carl Turner. “Each year, the partnerships continue to grow and expand, resulting in more and more positive activities happening throughout the community.”
SLSM students helped clean up Lake Avenue, several parks and worked with local business owners to plant flowers. “We really enjoyed cleaning up our beautiful town for Buenafication Day,” said SLSM teacher Angela Siefken. “All of the teachers and students look forward to planting more trees, mulching and participating in other ways again next year.”