Service club has been a proud program for the Olentangy community for over two decades. However, service club has been affected by the pandemic; not allowing students to make any progress. Here is what Erin Williams the Service Club advisor has to say. 

   “It has definitely been a challenge because there are things that we can not do, but there are still things we can do, so we are trying to put in more of an effort to post projects that are covid safe and that make people comfortable, but still serve the community,” Williams said. 

   Service club has been forced to cancel common events due to the virus. Williams says that trick or treat for cans has been cancelled for the first time in 25 years. This is due to there being touched and passed from one person to the other. Williams says that whatever Service Club does, they want to make sure all parties are involved and feel comfortable and safe. However, they still have to get creative in these times and still want to uphold their promises to serve the community. 

   “So, what we are working on right now is a November event in which we were thinking that if we can not ask for cans, how can we still get cans to people in need?” Williams said. 

   Service club has ended up collecting about 2,000 pounds of food and does not want to let down the community at this time because people are still less fortunate and People still count on the stuff they do even more now because of the economic down turns with the pandemic. What service club plans to do is a month of random acts of kindness. Williams says that service club is going to put out a list of all things they can do that are either Covid safe, or could do at their own time. This way they do what they feel comfortable with.

   “What our Pledge is that for every act of kindness that you do, the Service club will purchase five items of food to donate on your behalf. So, it is a way that service club has resources and money, and that is why we have our members pay dues every year,” Williams said. 

   Service club wants to use those resources to still provide people in need with food, but make it so members feel that they are the ones responsible. The random acts of kindness are activities from making blankets for the humane society to offering to rake your neighbors leaves. 

  “We are being very cautious with everything and we have had to cancel; Annual events that we have been looking forward to for a while now, but I feel that it’s very important to keep ourselves and the communities we are working in safe,” Service club leader, Joe Bulinski ‘21 said. 

   Service club is still looking for ways to solve the issues of losing out on service opportunities to help the community by coming up with new ways to help people in the communities.

   “We were planning on doing a modified version of trick or treat for cans this year, but sadly we had to cancel the event. We are working on planning new events that we can do under covid restrictions so that students can get as many opportunities to volunteer as possible,”Service club leader, Anushka Bhagat said.

   Service club will be publishing a full list of random acts as a creative way to serve. Williams still wants to honor the commitment of the members of service club and still wants to reach the community’s needs. Williams says this is only the start for this program, and service club will start to get creative with their future acts of kindness.