The Illini spirit of service filled campus and the Champaign-Urbana community on Friday through iHelp, a volunteer initiative done in the name of the Alma Mater. University students kicked off homecoming week by volunteering at dozens of local organizations from 2 to 6 p.m.

The Student Alumni Ambassadors organized iHelp to give students, alumni, family and friends an opportunity to work together and give back to the community.

“iHelp accomplishes the Student Alumni Ambassadors’ mission of bringing together students on campus and alumni across the globe for one cause and also advances the University’s mission of making the world a better place,” said Kenny Shaevel, iHelp’s vice president of service and outreach and junior in LAS and Engineering.

Service projects ranged from painting schools, assisting children with making crafts, raking leaves and helping at a nursing home. One of the event’s biggest projects was Illini Fighting Hunger. Volunteers packaged thousands of meals at the Student Dining and Residential Programs Building for the Eastern Illinois Foodbank.

Ushma Trivedi, senior in LAS, packaged pasta dishes with her registered student organization Illini Medical Screening Society for the Illini Fighting Hunger project.

“It’s great to get students involved and realize that we aren’t in a college bubble,” Trivedi said. “There are other people out there in the community that really need our help, and whatever we can do as students to help them I think is great.”

Liliana Arroyo, sophomore in ACES, volunteered with her fraternity Alpha Psi Lambda. They picked up trash on a portion of the South Quad.

“I was surprised to find so much trash; we filled two bags,” Arroyo said. “It was very humbling to clean. I felt better about myself and helping the community and knowing it’s my school, so we should take care of it.”

SAA began iHelp in 2006 after looking for a program that would involve as much of the campus as possible. They decided that service was the best way to do that, Shaevel said.

iHelp is only the start of the Homecoming volunteer initiative; University alumni can volunteer throughout the week. They will help with window painting and other fun events surrounding Homecoming, said Charlie Sterrett, co-director of alumni outreach at the University of Illinois Alumni Association and sophomore in LAS.

“Bettering where you live is embodied in the Illini, even post-graduation. Wherever they are in the world, they can do community service for the Alma Mater,” Sterrett said.

Ariana can be reached at [email protected]