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In recent years, community service has been increasingly highlighted as essential for a well-rounded college experience. To address that need, IPFW hosts volunteering opportunities and community-oriented events to shape young leaders, such as the Community Service Fair held on November 7th on the university's campus' Classical Ballroom.

Complimentary donuts were offered to those who visited and spoke to people at at least 8 display tables at the event.

The event ran from noon to 2 p.m., and offered the opportunity for students to learn about available community resources, browse agencies to volunteer with, and network while progressing towards free donuts at the end of the event. According to the Office of Student Life and Leadership, the fair was aimed at getting IPFW students more involved, not only with their IPFW "family", but also with the Fort Wayne community.

Kasey Price, the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Life and Leadership, said she believes the fair plays an important role in linking the university to the community. The goal was to invite agencies from the community into campus in order to educate students and community members about services available in the area, Price said.

"With the fair, we wanted to teach more people about what services are available in Northeast Indiana," Price said.

The fair is also relevant due to its role in introducing students to agencies - the same agencies that participate in the Big Event in April.

"The community service fair was designed to be complementary to the spring Big Event. In April, we send anywhere from 500 to 800 students, faculty, and staff to about 50 agencies in the community," Price said.

The Big Event is a national day of community service for colleges across the country. On April 14th of 2018 universities across the U.S. will have students engaged in community service in a massive country-wide volunteering day.

The community fair has been posed as a link to resources on campus in its last six editions; however, this year was the first time the fair was open to community members.

"We look forward to being able to have an opportunity for the community agencies to be able to spread their message to an even larger audience today," Price said.

Another new aspect to the Community Service Fair is its organizing staff. This year, the fair counted with the active leadership of Amanda Barcus, the Program Assistant for the Office of Student Life and Leadership.

Community member with her dog browse through the display tables at the fair.

Barcus used to work with the business office for student affairs at IPFW. In dealing with the local agencies, she said she found that she liked working with community involvement, which led her to apply for and get a position in student life. Now, she occupies this new position and has been tasked with setting the spectrum of her responsibilities and setting the standards for her tasks, which include organizing the Big Event and the Community Service Fair.

According to Barcus, since the fair was started in 2012, it was intended to be a sister program to the Big Event. The Big Event sends out hundreds of students into the community in the spring, and the fair brings the community (as agencies) into campus in the fall.

"They are supposed to work together to build a bridge," Barcus said, "between IPFW and the agencies, the community."

For the future of the fair, Barcus said she wishes the event to be less perceived as just a fair of volunteering opportunities, and more like an event to educate and inform students and community members on what the agencies are able to provide for them. The goal is to strengthen the bridge between the agencies and the university for the future, she said.

Nevertheless, Barcus said students can only benefit from engaging in community service.

"First, it connects them to their community," Barcus said.

It is often true that incoming freshmen, specially those from other states or countries, are unaware of or don't have the access to the resources available in Fort Wayne or Allen county, she said. The fair helps them become more aware of the opportunities in the community and maybe help them create a connection.

"Second, it gives them an opportunity to give back," Barcus said. "A big part of college is getting involved. It is important in order to build a well-rounded college education."

Both educators and students provide reasons to engage in community service while in college.

Barcus' statement reflects a new understanding of the relevance of community service in higher education, and its role in cultivating leadership. It creates a fuller college experience, and students who graduate with volunteering experience tend to create deeper, stronger and lasting networks.

At IPFW, this does not only come in the shape of volunteering for agencies in the community, the Big Event or attending the community fair. Community service at the university also comes in the shape of student organizations.

Jason Anderson, the Activities Coordinator for the IPFW Office of Student Life and Leadership, said Barcus' initiative shows the trend for student involvement in the community.

"Amanda is doing things a lot differently from the way I did, or even my predecessor," said Anderson. Barcus' focused position grants her the ability to target collaboration with student organizations, change the signup system for the Big Event, adapt the community service fair, and even be available for appointments with students who are interested in getting involved in volunteering, none of which had ever been done before, Anderson said.

Student signs up for more information about volunteering opportunities with Mental Health America.

According to Anderson, the collaboration between himself as head of student organization supervision and Barcus' focused position created the current picture of the situation at IPFW: community service numbers are up.

"They are up. They are hugely up; but a lot of that comes from her," Anderson said. "Every single run that is going on for the next academic year, she has signed us up as IPFW, and then when people want to participate it represents IPFW, and not just that individual. She has got some really unique ways to get community involvement going, which - in my position - there would be no time to figure out."

Anderson is the supervisor for student organizations on campus, and before Barcus joined the office he was one of the leaders spearheading the organization of community-oriented events like the Community Service Fair, the Big Event and all sorts of outreach programs. According to Anderson, these initiatives may be yielding crops sooner than expected.

"Last year the majority of our students involved in student organizations were particularly active students representing three or more organizations at the same time - those were the norm," said Anderson. "This semester alone, we had 15 brand new student organizations. And most would say 'we will only have 4 members by the end of the semester', and to that I'd say 'you need eight to stay active'. And I've never seen anything like the student list this year, because some of them had 30 or more students."

Anderson said that many former officers for student organizations graduated, or reduced their involvement because they are preparing to graduate. Even so, most organizations did not sizzle out into inactivity, as is the tendency when leadership graduates, but just got new officers. The numbers are about the same as in the past in terms of members, counting overlap members, but there are many more individuals involved now, said Anderson.

"And it is a lot of new people, and a lot of people who have never been officers, too," Anderson said, "which is good, because that means we got a new crop, which means somewhere there was leadership or an interest to say 'I wanna get involved in a student organization, and this is how I'm going to do it'."

Anderson said that, with the new changes coming to IPFW, changes are coming, and it is good to have this "new crop" of people. The diversity creates a variety of options of new events and activities that will work in cultivating community engagement, leadership and student involvement.

At the community service fair, students admitted to be there to try to get involved in the community.

"I’m opening my options, you know," said Hudson Fairchild, and IPFW freshman and seasoned volunteer. "I'm trying to do something I’ve never done before; I saw that the river cleanup was a really good option, I’ve never done that. Looking to broaden my horizons."

Fairchild said he has volunteered for soup kitchens, habitat for humanity, food banks and the like, and that he used to do so on a regular basis with his mom every other weekend. To him, the learning outcomes of volunteering are very clear and compelling, and he encourages other students to try it.

"When I volunteered at a food kitchen, it was really eye-opening to see all the people who needed help, and for me to be able to come in and help them as much as I possibly could, just the thanks they had in their faces," Fairchild said.

The community service fair allowed him to browse through options, he said, and he looks forward to getting involved in the near future.

"If you want to volunteer, just get out there, look at what you want to do, and just find out what you like. And, it is really good to help people while doing something you love," he said.