The revving of lawn mowers, yanking of weeds, and exhilaration of student involvement will be fuming in the air as the first annual statewide “Day of Caring” community service event takes place on Oct. 11. Senior Mark Staples, vice president of the North Dakota Association of Student Councils (NDASC) has given students across North Dakota the opportunity to give back.
“Last year when I was in the campaign [for state student council], I was thinking about what a good platform speech would be,” Staples said. “The first thing that came to my mind was community service and so the first thing that I thought of was the ‘Day of Caring’ that we had just done.”
Staples first proposed the idea of a statewide “Day of Caring” to the state officers at the NDASC Regional Conference in February.
“When the other officers heard I was doing the project, they were reluctant at first,” Staples said.
Greg Tehven, a 2003 West Fargo high school graduate, is involved in starting volunteer opportunities for students. Tehven pushed Staples to set up this event even though the state officers weren’t on board with it right away.
After talking to Tehven, Staples went straight to the United Way with his idea. The first meeting was in May 2012 and from there the meetings were set up every couple of weeks, consuming most of Staples’ summer.
“I keep calling this my baby,” Staples said. “Right before summer ended in August, we had a collaborative meeting and I actually presented it to all of the other United Ways so that was probably the biggest meeting of all of them.”
Les Anderson, the executive director of the NDASC, helped make this possible. Anderson said when students run for state office they sometimes make commitments to initiate statewide projects, but the organization realizes that students are busy with school activities.
“There are certain expectations for the state officers,” Anderson said. “Mark has gone over and above these responsibilities. Mark indicated he wanted to start a statewide ‘Day of Caring’ and he made time to make sure this would happen.”
The United Way worked with the Governor’s office to proclaim that Oct. 11 will be the statewide student “Day of Caring” and it will be an opportunity for students across the state to go out and give back to their communities.
“There will be a press conference where Jack Dalrymple [governor of North Dakota] does the official proclamation in Bismarck,” Staples said. “That is something that made me feel like it really legitimized it.”
Staples brought fireworks to the United Way and the NDASC by his determination to start this event. Even though it was a long process, come Oct. 11 the first ever statewide student “Day of Caring” will be final.
“We want to show that definitely the youth are leading this and the youth can make a positive difference in the community,” Thomas Hill, the community impact director at the United Way of Cass County, said. “United Ways across the state of North Dakota want to lift that up and make sure that the youth have an opportunity to have their voice heard.”