This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Heather Brooks looked pleased to see the growing pile of tiny hats — the handiwork of more than a dozen red-shirted volunteers who knitted them during a Saturday service blitz.
"It's way bigger than I expected," said Brooks, a volunteer at the Knitting for Newbies table during the Legacy of Lowell Community Service Day, a project of the University of Utah's Lowell Bennion Community Service Center.
A U. senior studying math, Brooks said efforts like the service day and the Bennion Center's year-round work go a long way toward strengthening student ties to the world beyond the campus.
"For us," she added, "it's connecting the university experience with the greater community."
This year's event, a kind of service-project sampler now in its seventh year, is helping the U. kick off homecoming week.
Participants took part in a range of activities — coaching refugees in English at the Horizonte School, home-building with Habitat for Humanity, assembling hygiene kits with Globus Relief, sorting goods at the Utah Food Bank.
An estimated 1,100 students, alumni and friends participated in 15 projects at 30 sites, according to Linda Dunn, the Bennion Center's executive director. When they were done, the volunteers lunched at Glendale's Parkview Elementary and shared their thoughts about the morning's labor.
"This is so much more than two hours this morning," said Dunn, who talked about the ties being built between the civic groups and the volunteers. "Really good things are happening at each [service-day] site. I think that prompts further service."
Janean Ford, a U. sophomore in international studies and political science, gave the event two thumbs up after helping with a literacy fair at Parkview.
She helped kids make a poster that said, "We [heart] our books," and she read to a child. "It's nice," Ford said, "to start homecoming week by giving something back."
Jose Cortez, a junior at East High, stood next to a small pile of books that he and his brothers would be taking home from the literacy fair. The stack included a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, as well as a collection of dinosaur books and Dr. Seuss classics.
One brother — wearing a cartoon T-shirt proclaiming "I play video games. My dog does my homework" — was making a bookmark with cardboard, string and stickers.
"My little brothers don't read much," Jose Cortez said. "I try to get them to read more. It's something to do other than watching TV."
Who was Lowell Bennion?
Humanitarian Lowell Bennion was director of the LDS Institute of Religion, adjacent to the University of Utah, from the mid-1930s until the early '60s. He then was associate dean of students and professor of sociology at the U. until 1972. Bennion later established the Salt Lake Area Community Services Council to provide volunteer services to Utah's needy. In 1986, the U. established the Lowell Bennion Community Service Center to help pass on his ideals to college students. —
At homecoming game
Video from the day of service will be shown when the University of Utah football team hosts San Jose State on Saturday.