Students share their services

This Saturday, UCF students will have the opportunity to make Halloween decorations, landscape and restore Central Florida's waterways, among other things, all for a good cause.

Knights Give Back, sponsored by the Student Government Association and Volunteer UCF, plans to send participants to 18 local sites where they will provide community services Saturday, Oct. 15.

On the day of the event, registered volunteers are scheduled to check in at The Venue, where a free breakfast will be served and transportation will be provided by bus to the various service sites.

Knights Give Back is open to all students, faculty and alumni who wish to pitch in. Volunteers can pick their sites on a first-come, first-served basis, but each site accommodates a limited number of participants. Some sites have been filled, but many can still take on volunteers.

About 1,800 volunteers participated in Knights Give Back over the last four years. Last year's event had about 800 participants.

Rachel Brill, student director of Volunteer UCF, said that this year's goal is to have more than 2,000 people signed up, with at least 1,000 of those signed up actually attending.

Brill, a junior at UCF, has been involved with Volunteer UCF for the past three years.

"I see Knights Give Back as a chance for students to give back in a positive way," Brill said. "Students get to see how they can affect their community in just a few hours. The community also sees a different side of students."

Lisa Cunningham, Volunteer UCF graduate assistant, participated in the first Knights Give Back event in 2007, which she said had only about 300 volunteers. Cunningham said that the event has grown since then. She calls Knights Give Back a great school-wide effort to give back to the Orlando community.

Many of the organizations involved this year have worked with Knights Give Back in the past. Boys Town, a nonprofit site in Oviedo that works with at-risk youth and families in the community, has partnered with the program for several years.

This year, volunteers from UCF are scheduled to clean and refresh parts of the Boys Town campus, as well as engage with the children and help them make Halloween decorations.

Terry Knox, development director at Boys Town, said he sees the volunteers as positive role models for the children.

"Our kids love being engaged with UCF students," Knox said. "[The children] can see that if they apply themselves, they can make it too."

Give Kids the World, a nonprofit in Kissimmee that gives children suffering from life-threatening illnesses and their families cost-free vacations at their storybook-themed village, has also worked with Knights Give Back in previous years. This year, volunteers plan on doing various cleaning and landscaping work throughout the organization's 70-acre village.

Tami Wright, group volunteer coordinator at Give Kids the World, said that the work volunteers do at Give Kids the World is greatly appreciated by the organization.

"We want it to be beautiful for these families when they come," Wright said. "We could not run this village without volunteers."

Those who would like more information on Knights Give Back 2011 and the volunteer sites available, or who would like to register for the event can visit the Volunteer UCF website at http://vucf.getinvolveducf.com.