Mendoza debuts inaugural volunteer service week

Sometimes, casual conversations in the hallway or over a cubicle wall spark the best ideas.

Cathi Kennedy holds up a poster revealing the stats from the Inaugural Mendoza Volunteer Week.

Case in point: In 2022, Mendoza College of Business colleagues Stephanie Drudge and Kalynda Hamilton were chatting about the variety of volunteer opportunities offered on the University of Notre Dame campus. They both had participated in the University’s United Way Day of Service and had heard about the Notre Dame Law School’s volunteer effort on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“What might we be able to do?” Drudge remembered they asked each other.

They sought input from other colleagues and soon secured leadership’s approval to formally create a committee and a budget. Hamilton, who is the coordinator of student onboarding, organized a January meeting of Mendoza colleagues interested in helping plan a service project. They dubbed the effort, the Mendoza Community Outreach Blitz.

After polling staff, students and faculty in the College to gauge interest and availability, the team planned a weeklong effort during National Volunteer Month in April that included on- and off-campus service opportunities. Partnering with local nonprofit organizations including St. Margaret’s House, Reins of Life and Unity Gardens, the committee invited everyone to register for activities during the week of April 22-26. The projects ranged from creating no-sew blankets for St. Joseph Health System to assembling meals for Pack Away Hunger. The committee also provided donation opportunities for those who wanted to give financial support or in-kind items.

“The goal was to promote the good in business but also reduce as many barriers as possible,” said Drudge, assistant director of student experiential learning and leadership development. “We hoped to have a large number of volunteers choose from spending 15 minutes between classes to up to four hours off campus. So it offered everything from minimal involvement to a little bit more.”

In the end, nearly 120 students, staff and faculty worked more than 200 hours to provide services to nine local nonprofit organizations. Mendoza representatives threw an Earth Day party for 37 students at the Boys and Girls Club of St. Joseph County and scanned 8 GB of data for local Head Start programs. They packed 6,817 meals for Cultivate Culinary and the Food Bank of Northern Indiana and tied nearly 40 blankets for St. Joseph Health System. Once delivered, Father Michael Mbonu blessed the blankets and those who created them before they were given to the youngest patients in the hospital.

Hamilton said the outreach blitz went “phenomenally well” and they will begin planning 2025’s event this fall. One goal for the next outreach blitz is to make sure all, especially students, can contribute by continuing to offer a wide variety of on-campus activities for different schedules and abilities in the College.