HOUSTON, TX - With a combined resident and staff population of approximately 20,000 people in the US, Campus Living Villages, a global leader in student housing, intends to make a major "Impact" with the aptly named fall launch of a new community initiative targeting hunger and water quality issues. The goal of the Impact Challenge initiative: to collect 20,000 pounds of non-perishable food and $20,000 earmarked for clean drinking water. While community involvement has long been a part of residence life programming at CLV US Student Villages, which are located on or adjacent to 28 college campuses in 13 states, this is the first such program to harness the strength of the CLV US population as a collective volunteer force.
Leading with "Impact Hunger," each village has been challenged to collect at least one pound of food per resident and staff member between the start of the fall 2010 semester and the end of the Thanksgiving holiday. Each village will partner with a food bank serving the needs of their particular community. The spring semester will kick off "Impact Thirst" with the task of raising $1 per resident and staff member by Earth Day in April. The resulting funds have been earmarked to support Water For People, an international, nonprofit humanitarian organization that provides sustainable, safe drinking water resources and improved sanitation facilities in the developing world.
As with the company's previous residential life offerings, the newly executed and multi-layered "Live Learn and Grow" program has given autonomy to villages to design efforts that are a best fit for each community, rather than following a one size fits all philosophy. The staff and residents will drive the creation of events and activities of interest to them to meet the goals of Impact Challenge. According to Campus Living Villages Director of Residence Life, Randy Degner, "We want our residents to be invested in the challenge in ways that are personally meaningful to them. The goal is to help foster values of service and social responsibility."
"The development of this program was somewhat of an 'ah-hah' moment for all of us," Degner continued. "In effect, our residents were already demonstrating that they want to give back to the community and work together to achieve major goals. When we looked at the numbers on a national scale, we knew that we had the potential to make a dramatic impact if we pooled our efforts."
Campus Living Villages (CLV) is the national leader in the privatized management and development of on-campus student housing. CLV employs approximately 900 housing professionals and currently manages student housing facilities on or near 47 university campuses totaling more than 32,000 beds in the US, Australia, England and New Zealand.
Source: Campus Living Villages