Volunteer

Service is an integral part of the Berea College experience and many organizations and departments on campus make volunteering a main focus. Listed below are organizations and departments that have opportunities for students to get involved through volunteerism.

The Center for Excellence in Learning through Service (CELTS) focuses on preparing students for a lifetime of civic and community involvement. Continuing Berea’s long history of student leadership in service, outreach, and campus-community collaboration, CELTS coordinates Berea’s student-led, community-service programs and supports service-learning in the academic curriculum.

Through their labor positions, CELTS students lead service programs and respond to community needs by serving in collaboration with community-based organizations. CELTS labor students recruit and train fellow students as volunteers and coordinate activities including tutoring and mentoring children and teens, leading special programs for residents of long-term care facilities, helping to build houses for low-income families, bridging local English-speaking and Spanish-speaking populations, organizing the annual community-wide events that raise awareness and funds to address local hunger, promoting student voter engagement, and taking on environmental and human rights issues.

Berea College students can become involved as volunteers beginning in their very first semester, and themes of sustainability can be found throughout CELTS programs and volunteer opportunities. For example:

CELTS also coordinates and supports community-engaged teaching and scholarship, including service-learning courses and a minor in Community and Civic Engagement (CCE). For students interested in the application of academic theory and skills to address issue of sustainability: