Serving the community
Saturday programs give students opportunity to help out locallyBy KURT HAUGLIE, DMG Writer
Article Photos
HOUGHTON - James Lowery and other members of the Triangle Fraternity at Michigan Technological University were looking for some sort of local community service activity they could take part in when they heard of the Tech Service Saturday program.
One of the activities being offered Saturday was working at the Copper Country Humane Society animal shelter in Houghton, and the fraternity chose to offer their services there, Lowery said.
"We decided it would be a good idea to come up and walk dogs," he said.
Lowery said it's important for Tech students to get off campus to do things, and the Service Saturday is a good way to do that.
"It gets people involved with the community," he said.
Ali Jahnke, student event planner with the Tech student activities office, said the Service Saturday program is new this year and started in September.
"One Saturday a month we offer projects for students to do," she said.
The first event in the program was really more of presentation about fire safety, Jahnke said.
"A lot of people came out for that," she said.
In October, students took part in the national Make A Difference Day created by the newspaper USA Today, and it was very popular.
"This year we had over 450 students volunteer for it," Jahnke said.
Other projects offered for Service Saturday included cutting fire wood for Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly, and picking up trash on campus and around Houghton, Jahnke said. For the trash pick up, a scuba diver went into the Portage Lake Shipping Canal and brought out two bags of trash.
Besides working at the animal shelter, another project was planned for cleaning up and cutting brush on the Tech trails.
Despite the cold weather five people did show up to work on the project.
Besides walking dogs, one of the other projects at the animal shelter was to play with and pet the cats, and Kaycee Haskell was trying to work with one of the more rambunctious cats who seemed to be more interested in biting and digging its claws into her pants leg.
"I'm a cat lover," she said. "(But) I haven't done anything like this before."
Kurt Hauglie can be reached at khauglie@mininggazette.com.
