Over 1.4 million people in Illinois have been assisted by Feeding Illinois, the state food bank association, and University faculty, staff, students and community members helped decrease those numbers by participating in the Community and Campus Day of Service on Saturday at Student Dining and Residential Programs.

In honor of National Volunteer Week, organizations including Illini Fighting Hunger, the Office of Volunteer Programs, Austin’s Day, local community groups and other organizations coordinated the Day of Service with the goal of packaging 146,000 meals.

Gregory Damhorst is the director of the registered student organization Illini Fighting Hunger. Damhorst, graduate student in the college of Engineering and college of Medicine, said the packaged meals will be sent to the Eastern Illinois Food Bank. 

The goal of 146,000 meals was inspired by “one thousand meals for every year the University have existed,” Damhorst said. 

The facilitators said they hoped to see 600 volunteers but received help from over 1,600 people. Sarah Zehr, event coordinator and assistant dean and director of Engineering Career Services, said she was thrilled with the results.  

“I was super excited that so many people came,” she said. “I was very pleased with the level of participation and enthusiasm. It wasn’t just people from the University — it was people from the community as well, and that was the goal we wanted to achieve. It was basically a public engagement activity, and it means that we are active with the public, and that’s what we want people to know.”

Chancellor Phyllis Wise said she was astonished by the outcome. 

“I am just utterly amazed, utterly amazed,” Wise said. “There is an incredible need in our community. There are one in four children who are on school lunches, and there are one in five that are at the poverty level, and it just takes one person at a time to help. I think doing community service is absolutely a part of our mission — it’s what the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is all about. We serve.”

Champaign Mayor Don Gerard added that community service makes a difference. 

“I’m just so extremely grateful that they put together things like this and fantastically grateful for our student population that invests in our community because as the mayor of Champaign, I want people to feel like this is their home and not just some place they’re coming and then take off,” Gerard said. “Everybody is here pitching in. You look around and you see all the different faces and, to me, it feels like America. It feels like this is how it should be and how we should be working together to make things better. I love the University of Illinois and the student population and it’s so wonderful to have them investing in our community and being a part of this.”

Students, like Ariana Wilson, freshman in LAS, also said they think community service is important, and Wilson said she thought it was more fun than hard work.

“It was just so much fun, and everybody was really friendly. I had a good time,” she said.  “There’s a lot of people in need out there and anything that you can do to help, especially if you’re of higher privileges, and being here at the University, I am so blessed, and I want to bless other people, too.”

Yesenia Olvera, senior in LAS, said giving back is something that she does on a regular basis. 

“Volunteering means something you do out of no reason,” Olvera said. “It’s just something you do to help others. I’ve been volunteering ever since I was young, so whenever they need me, I just go.”

The hard teamwork resulted in packaging 81,044 meals Saturday, Damhorst said. Though the total was lower than their goal, participants were pleased with the numbers.

“I love being part of the community and being part of a team,” Wise said. “This is just one more beautiful example of what the University does. We teach, we discover, and we engage with the local community, the state community, the national community and the global community.” 

Nyajai can be reached at [email protected].