Community Building Day 2022 Supports Whitworth’s Mission to Serve Humanity

Whitworthians will head out into the community on Wednesday, Sept. 28, to continue the 115-year tradition of Community Building Day. This year, students, faculty, and President Scott and Janice McQuilkin will meet in the Whitworth Fieldhouse at 7:20 a.m. and take buses to several locations where they’ll volunteer their time for four hours.

The annual day of service is organized by Whitworth’s Dornsife Center for Community Engagement. Each year, all incoming first-year students and transfer seminar students, along with any students or faculty who’d like to volunteer, participate in various service projects throughout Spokane to live out Whitworth’s mission of honoring God, following Christ and serving humanity.

The day is designed to introduce Whitworth students to the good work taking place throughout the city and invite students to see themselves as a part of the larger Spokane community in a meaningful way.

“Community Building Day is a chance for Whitworthians to see the strengths of Spokane in a new way,” says Meredith Devey, director of the Dornsife Center. “By sending students out to serve with so many great organizations, we hope each student will deepen their understanding of how their passions and education can be used to invest in the common good, starting now and not just once they graduate.”

Here are just a few of the projects Whitworth students will be taking part in:

• For the first time in years, Whitworth students will be traveling to the Hutton Settlement to support that organization with its sustainable agriculture projects. 

• Students will be canvassing the West Central neighborhood with two organizations, West Spokane Wellness Partnership, a resilience and substance use prevention coalition, and the West Central Development Project, a group formed to work alongside and support people experiencing poverty in the neighborhood.

• Whitworth will continue its partnership with Parasport Spokane, bringing athletes to campus so students can service their sports wheelchairs and then experience wheelchair basketball. 

Community Building Day began in 1907 as a student-led campus-beautification endeavor called Campus Day. In the mid-1990s, the event evolved into a partnership between local nonprofit organizations and Whitworth volunteers who work on cleanup and improvement projects throughout Spokane.

About Whitworth University:

Located in Spokane, Wash., Whitworth is a private liberal arts university affiliated with the Presbyterian church. The university, which has an enrollment of nearly 3,000 students, offers more than 100 undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

Contacts:

Trisha Coder, media relations manager, Whitworth University, (509) 777-4703 or tcoder@whitworth.edu