At Marywood’s Annual Opening Liturgy on Sept. 3, 2014, President Sr. Anne Munley IHM, Ph.D., issued a challenge to members of the university community: contribute 100,000 hours of community service in honor of Marywood’s centennial.

As of Sept. 8, 2015, the date of Marywood’s Centennial celebration, the university had only logged 57,635 service hours using GiveGab, a fundraising website that allows organizations to tally community service hours.

During this year’s Convocation, Sr. Anne Munley, I.H.M., Ph.D., president, said in her speech, “We need your participation to get us to the finish.”

Last March, 7 months into the centennial service challenge only 20,000 hours toward the challenge had been logged. Read our article.

The challenge, which had originally only been a 14 month challenge, now stands for 24 months. The deadline to log community service hours for the Marywood Centennial was Dec. 31, 2015 but has been extended to Sept. 8, 2016.

Ann O’Brien, assistant director for Service-Learning and Community Service, said that community service hours can be completed by students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members.

“Students can check the course announcements that are sent out weekly via-email to join the Volunteers in Action (VIA club) through campus ministry, go to Griffin Pond Animal Shelter on Fridays, participate in Kidstuff and all the other things that occur in the community,” said O’Brien.

“I am so confident and have no doubt that we will be able to reach that 100,000 community service mark,” said O’Brien.

Joe Hunt, junior accounting and finance major, is involved in Campus Ministry and is an avid user of GiveGab.

“It’s really useful to keep track of how many hours you do and how many hours a certain organization does. It keeps everything organized,” said Hunt.