The Corporation for National and Community Service named Hastings College to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction for exemplary service efforts and service to disadvantaged youth.

Overall, the Community Service Honor Roll awarded six schools with Presidential Awards. In addition, four schools were recognized as Special Achievement Award winners, 127 as Honor Roll with Distinction members and 391 schools as Honor Roll members. In total, 528 schools were recognized.

More than 900 Hastings College students of the 1,137 enrolled volunteered 31,833 hours of service to the local and global community in 2007.

Dr. M. Jean Heriot, associate director of vocational discernment and service learning, and assistant professor of religion and sociology, coordinates the volunteer efforts at Hastings College.

“As part of our institutional mission, we encourage students to use their skills to address problems facing the community and the wider world,” said Dr. Phillip Dudley, president of Hastings College. “Our students serve locally at agencies and schools, nationally in places like the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, and internationally in communities from Guatemala to India. I am continually inspired by our students and proud of their generosity and commitment to service.”

Hastings College students volunteered their time with the following service projects: Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week (students raised $3,000 for the hungry and homeless); “Be the Voice: Save Dafur” (students presented informative sessions regarding the situation in Dafur, wrote to members of Congress, and took part in a Facebook campaign against genocide); Living Hope: Guatemala, Social Justice and Service (students did service learning projects for two weeks in Guatemala); Imagine Hastings: intergenerational interviews (students conducted interviews with Hastings community leaders who shared experiences and their visions for the community); collaboration with The Zone (students volunteered at an after-school program for at-risk middle and high school youth); and America Reads: Tutoring at Risk Pre-School and Elementary Students (students partnered with the Migrant Education Program and elementary schools to provide after-school tutoring for at-risk children).

Launched in 2006, the Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement. Honorees for the award were chosen based on a series of selection factors including scope and innovativeness of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service, and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

The Honor Roll is jointly sponsored by the Corporation, through its Learn and Serve America program, and the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, USA Freedom Corps, and the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation.

The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering.

The Corporation administers Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America, a program that supports service-learning in schools, institutions of higher education and community-based organizations. For more information, go to http://www.nationalservice.gov.

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