New students at The University of Findlay will get their start in their new home Saturday by reaching out to the community to assist with more than 50 service projects throughout the day.

More than 500 new students, accompanied by faculty and staff volunteers and upperclass students, will spend three hours each helping to clean, paint, landscape, inventory, visit with senior citizens and build a new play area for a YMCA camp, among many other projects.

The service day is supported by Coca-Cola, which donated 480 bottles of water to support the project.

Each year, new UF students have the opportunity, before they even step into a classroom, to give back to their new community by volunteering. During 2008-09, UF students volunteered more than 11,000 hours of service. For a full list of projects and further information, please contact Suzanne English, director of public information, at 419-434-4425 or 419-306-7552.

This winter, The University of Findlay was named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for exemplary service efforts. 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 innovation 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.