SIUE offers helping hand to Boy Scouts

By Anthony Watt
News Reporter

SIUE students are making a difference as volunteers.

Twenty-four students spent their Saturday doing projects at Camp Warren Levis, one of two camps for the Trails West Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Named the Day of Caring, the project has occurred annually for five years and is sponsored by the Kimmel Leadership Center and SIUE Counseling Services for the United Way Partnership.

"We do this," Marvin Peterson, director of Counseling Services, said, "because United Way has been helping us for many years with donations for the Sexual Assault Prevention Program that we offer for SIUE students and members of the surrounding communities. It helps agencies of the United Way as well as giving members of the Student Leadership Development Program an opportunity to participate in a volunteer service." Yearly, Camp Warren Levis services about 3,000 Boy Scouts of Madison, Greene, Jersey, Bond, Calhoun and Macoupin counties.

The students that volunteered at the camp did construction work, painting, landscaping or helped in the camp's kitchen.

"This year it was astronomical," Robin Cobbel, Facilities Director at Camp Warren Levis, said. "I loved it. They did a number of projects and cleaned up when they were done, making less work for me. I wish they would come back a couple of times a year."

The Day of Caring is not the only volunteer project open to SIUE students. Kimmel Leadership Center offers various programs including PrairieLand Share Food Co-ops, Action! Days, spring break volunteer trips and projects during the holiday breaks.

"Things aren't all down and dirty grunt work," Suzanne Kutterer-Siburt, assistant director of Kimmel, said. "We do social, environmental, educational, as well as construction work.

We also try to reach a wide range of cultural groups, and do work in every area that our students come from. So we do things in St. Louis and the metro-east. We don't try to stereotype by sticking to one area or one particular type of volunteer work."

The next project, a PrairieLand Share Food Co-op, will occur from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Sept. 25.

For more information, contact the Kimmel Leadership Center at 650-2686.