Driving nails in the hot July sun is no sweat for 12 incoming Elon freshmen, who are spending a week working on a Habitat for Humanity home and participating in a variety of other civic activities as part of Pre-SERVE, an event hosted by the Kernodle Center for Service Learning and Elon Volunteers!
The students were selected through an application process. They live in campus housing from July 7-11 and get a firsthand look at the opportunities they will have to
serve the local community during their years at Elon. The six male and six female students work with two upperclass student coordinators and advisor Lauren Kier, Elon’s director of tutorial services. This year, the group is working on a Habitat home off Brooklyn Dr. in Glen Raven, N.C., for Thuylanthi Nguyen and her daughter.
“Everybody who is here wants to be here,” says Adrienne Coscia of Brentwood, Tenn., who will enroll in the fall. “You would never guess that we just met a few days ago.” She says while Pre-SERVE is helpful for new students to meet their peers before the start of school, its real value is found in serving others. “It’s very rewarding, just helping people and seeing them smile. I’m sure this home means 10 times more to (Thuylanthi) than my house does to me, so that’s a nice feeling.”
The Pre-SERVE group also visited the residents of Blakey Hall, a local retirement
community and paid a visit to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Alamance County. Throughout the week, student coordinators Jennifer Boone and Erin Lawless lead the group in a nightly reflection on the day’s events.
Pre-SERVE is one of the many events sponsored by the Kernodle Center and Elon Volunteers! Elon students completed 58,800 service hours during the 2001-02 academic year, and 85 percent of 2002 graduates participated in a service experience during their Elon career.