With 1300 Vol­un­teers, Maryville Reaches Out Has Record-Break­ing Year

It’s the most won­der­ful time of the year. Maryville Reaches Out, MRO, that is. With un­der­grad­u­ate classes can­celled on Tues­day, Sept. 20, 2016 in honor of MRO, the en­tire day was de­voted to Maryville stu­dents vol­un­teer­ing through­out St. Louis. What a sight it is to see 1,300 stu­dents sit­ting in the gym ready to serve the com­mu­nity. “This was a record break­ing year for MRO and I could­n’t be more thank­ful to every­one that came out to vol­un­teer,” Aaron Buet­tner, MRO stu­dent co­or­di­na­tor, said. “I’ve been work­ing on this since the mid­dle of May, so it was re­ally over­whelm­ing to see over 1,000 peo­ple reg­is­ter to vol­un­teer on just the first day.” Ac­cord­ing to Buet­tner, only 500 peo­ple reg­is­tered on the first day last year.

Each year, Maryville Reaches Out teaches students something just as important as classroom material: giving back. As one of Maryville University’s core values, civic engagement, the cultivation of well-rounded students is evident. This is not your average university in the fact that Maryville goes as far as cancelling classes to grant students the opportunity to help others and build relationships.

“We talk about our mis­sion, but Tues­day morn­ing we did­n’t have to talk at all. It just spoke for it­self, and it speaks vol­umes about the stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff that we have here. There are many days, but this is one of the days in par­tic­u­lar, when I’m re­ally proud to say that I am happy to be a saint,” Kathy Quinn, dean of stu­dents, said.

Quinn has been around since MRO started nine years ago with 870 vol­un­teers, and she has seen it grow sub­stan­tially over the years. Ac­cord­ing to Quinn, her fa­vorite part of the event is dur­ing the morn­ing of.
“Feel­ing the en­ergy in the room, it’s ex­cit­ing to see how every­body else is ex­cited about par­tic­i­pat­ing and giv­ing back,” Quinn said.

Tay­lor Wucher, fresh­man

Pro­ject: Lutheran Se­nior Cen­ter

What did you do while you were there? “I re­ally en­joyed my day. We go to chat with the se­nior [cit­i­zens], play bingo with them and I even painted some ladies’ nails.”

Why did you pick your pro­ject? “I have a pas­sion for help­ing [el­ders], and I want to even­tu­ally work in geri­atrics phys­i­cal ther­apy.”

Who would you rec­om­mend this pro­ject to? “I would rec­om­mend this pro­ject to some­one that is com­fort­able with se­nior [cit­i­zens] and ca­sual con­ver­sa­tion.”

Tay­lor Hell­mann, sopho­more

Pro­ject: Fam­ily Re­source Cen­ter

What is the Fam­ily Re­source Cen­ter? “It is a place where chil­dren, pri­mar­ily preschool age, who have been vic­tims of abuse, vi­o­lence or ne­glect can go af­ter be­ing re­moved from other preschools.”

What did you do there? “We did­n’t get to in­ter­act with the kids there, but we cleaned out trash out­side and cleaned all the toys in­side.”

Why did you de­cided to do MRO for an­other year? “I think MRO is a won­der­ful thing. Do­ing all of these pro­jects on the same day re­ally makes a huge im­pact in our com­mu­nity.”

 

Thank you to all the vol­un­teers that helped make this a record break­ing year. Did you have a ter­rific MRO ex­pe­ri­ence? Share yours in the com­ments be­low!