For four days this week, 50 incoming Georgia Southern University first-year students who enlisted in the BUILD program divided into smaller teams and did volunteer work at various nonprofit sites, from campus to downtown Statesboro and beyond.

One group of students had worked at the Statesboro Food Bank on Monday. Another team, including 10 to 15 incoming freshmen volunteers and two student “BUILD leaders” now in the junior class, showed up to work there Thursday morning – the last day of the program. They helped stock shelves with donated or otherwise newly arrived canned goods and other foodstuffs unloaded from a truck by other volunteers.

One of the student leaders, Carter Ellington, 19, from Valdosta, did not go through BUILD as a freshman, but she has since participated in Southern Leaders, a multi-year student leadership program which, like BUILD, is coordinated through the university’s Office of Leadership and Community Engagement. She has also stepped forward in the community as a volunteer, such as with summer camps for foster children at 7th Mile Farm.

So, Ellington was recruited to be a BUILD leader, and said she enjoyed working with the newer students and watching them grow some in just four days, or five if you count from their arrival on campus around midday Sunday.

“I love volunteering and I thought I was just going to be volunteering and feeling that feeling, but actually watching them, the students, feel like they are making an impact and for one they’re being heard and seen and they’re doing something that makes other people feel heard and seen, that’s been so awesome to watch,” she said.

BUILD stands for Building Undergraduate Involvement in Leadership Development, which may be one of those acronyms that led to a full name instead of the other way round. Incoming first-year students who participate arrive a full month before fall semester actually begins and pay a $200 fee to cover the cost of their lodging – in a temporary residence hall assignment – meals, transportation, equipment and leadership.

The other student BUILD leader with Thursday’s group at the Food Bank, Jake Arispe, 21, from the Atlanta area, is also heading into his junior year. But BUILD leaders can be sophomores, juniors or seniors, and there were eight this year, guiding, assisting and to some extent counseling the incoming first-year student volunteers.

In fact, Arispe was a BUILD volunteer the summer before his first year at Georgia Southern, and a BUILD leader going into his second year, as well as now, his third.

“I had a great time my freshman year,” he said. “It definitely helped me get acclimated to campus, the community, and then also meet a bunch of different people, learned all about the community, the outreaches that different places do.”

Friendship building time

The volunteer work assignments typically last from 9 a.m. until noon. Other activities, and debriefing sessions in which volunteers and leaders talk about topics such as leadership and community involvement, occupy afternoons and evenings. The new students also get to know each other, and a little about campus and Statesboro.

“I definitely felt more comfortable once I got to campus because of it,” Arispe said, recalling his freshman experience two years ago.

Incidentally, Ellington is majoring in criminal justice as a pre-law student, but Arisbe majoring in sports medicine and finance. So it’s not like the student leaders are all planning to be counselors or work for some Chamber of Commerce.

A variety of different academic interests was also evident in three young men, all 18 years old from various areas of Georgia, who appeared to be friends already. Miles Hill, from Austell, is an intended theater major. Tristan Clark, from Burke County, plans to major in criminal justice & criminology and to minor in cybersecurity. Myles Benjamin, from McDonough, intends on a geosciences major and hopes to become a meteorologist.

Clark said the program was better than he expected when he signed up.

“I think the amount of friends I’ve made this week is amazing” he said. “You know, I feel so close to them, even after just a week,” he said.

One of his previous volunteer exploits of the week involved sorting shoes at a Christian ministry thrift shop. He and several of the other students said they also enjoyed some work they did at the Bulloch County Agricultural Complex.

Benjamin noted that on one of the days, he had packed bags with T-shirts, grabbers and trash bags for Georgia Southern Eagles football players to use in a volunteer project of their own, cleaning up along a highway.

Individual BUILD students went to four or five volunteer sites in the four work days.

Overall reach

But altogether, the 50 freshman volunteers and eight student leaders did service work at 12 different places, reported Rachel Duvall, new this calendar year as director of the GS Office of Leadership and Community Engagement.

Other jobsites included a couple of senior living facilities, Mattie Lively Elementary School, the United Way of Southeast Georgia and the university’s own Campus Community Garden. Besides getting down in the dirt gardening there, some students reported having pulled weeds and laid down mulch on the grounds of the Statesboro Family YMCA.

“These incoming students really get exposed to the university and campus,” Duvall said. “So they learn some of our traditions, some of the things that make it meaningful to be a Georgia Southern Eagle, but also they are getting connected with the community. So hopefully, they’ll join us on service trips for the rest of the year.”

Freshman Council within the Student Government Association is one of the opportunities some of these students may choose, she said. In addition to the SGA and Southern Leaders, the Office of Leadership and Community Engagement coordinates Serve 911, a program of weekly service trips.

With those programs, students can continue to volunteer locally throughout their college years.

But as a unique experience for incoming freshmen, BUILD also serves as a “little taste of independence” for some who have never been away from home before, Duvall noted.

“So Day 1 they’re all nervous and they don’t want to talk to each other, and then by last (Wednesday) night they were hugging, dancing, having a party,” she said. “So it’s just nice to see them come out of their shells in a way that really prepares them for the larger college experience.”

Many or all of the BUILD students will now go home before returning to campus for the real start of the semester. Operation Move-In Day is Aug. 14, for full-term classes to begin Aug. 19.