To empower students through service experiences and collaborative partnerships to meaningfully serve our local and global communities as lifelong active, aware and engaged citizens.
The Center for Community Outreach works to encourage active volunteerism in both our local and global communities. We engage students through meaningful opportunities to serve, respond to community needs, organize semi-annual days of service, develop volunteer management skills, and support community initiatives and non-profits through service opportunities. Through volunteer training, speakers, workshops, and our volunteer resource library, we hope to raise awareness of issues within our community.
Hunger and homelessness, youth mentoring, English literacy, and community health are just some of the issues to which our 14 unique student-run programs respond to on a local, national and global scale. Our programs coordinate daily, weekly, monthly, and semi-annually service opportunities either independently or collaboratively with a campus or community agency. We hope to empower students to further become engaged citizens and bridge the gap between campus and community.
Founded in 1990 as an initiative for all students to directly access and serve the Lawrence community, CCO works with a variety of student groups, organizations and local nonprofits to best serve the community. Each program added to CCO has grown as a response to students’ passion for the arts, sustainability, homelessness, hunger, mentoring, advocacy and education.