Students Give Back to Community During Fall Break

This year more than 800 students will be giving up their Fall Break in order to help 20 different nonprofit organizations during the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s (UNO) Three Days of Service, which runs Friday through Tuesday, Oct. 19, 21, and 22.

Participating students and other volunteers will spend three days building homes and refurbishing community facilities in order to help nonprofit agencies such as Habitat for Humanity, the Open Door Mission and Lutheran Family Services.

“This event is a great way for students to help their local community, as well as get to know local needs and issues,” says Julie Smith, coordinator for Three Days of Service. “These students could just as easily spend their fall break having fun, but they have decided to give something back to the community.”

Smith adds that in the nine years that UNO has sponsored Three Days of Service, students have collaborated with over 70 nonprofit organizations. In total, UNO offers more than two weeks work of service days each year, regularly contributing millions of dollars to the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area.

Smith said that Omaha Public School students and additional community volunteers will also participate and volunteers are still needed. Interested parties can register online at www.unomaha.edu/serve.

UNO is a nationally respected leader on community engagement and community service, having made the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll every year since 2005; UNO the only higher education institution in Nebraska to earn this accomplishment.

For a full list of participating organizations or volunteer times, please contact Maggie Stryson at 402.641.6746 or by email atmstryson@unomaha.edu.

Media inquiries can also be sent to the UNO University Communications Office at 402.554.2129 or by email at unonews@unomaha.edu.

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The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) is Nebraska’s metropolitan university. The core values of the institution place students at the center of all that the university does; call for the campus to strive for academic excellence; and promote community engagement that transforms and improves urban, regional, national and global life. UNO, inaugurated in 1968, emerged from the Municipal University of Omaha, established in 1931, which grew out of the University of Omaha founded in 1908.