September 26, 2025/Midnight

Erie, PA. — On Saturday, I participated in the 28th annual Gannon’s Invitation to Volunteer Everywhere (GIVE) Day. This is an event hosted by the Center for Social Concerns every third Saturday in September, and it is one of my favorite days during the fall semester. There is something special about being with your Gannon family and giving back to a community that serves you and your university.

To summarize GIVE Day, Gannon students, faculty, staff, and alumni go into the Erie, Pa. or Ruskin, Fla. communities (or if they are alumni, their respective communities) and volunteer with various nonprofit organizations. This year, there were more than 1,000 Gannon students volunteering across 30 locations.

This was the second GIVE Day I participated in, but by far my favorite. My group consisted of members of Gannon’s Marketing and Communications department, along with some of my friends. We were assigned to Presque Isle to pick up trash along the beaches in honor of International Coastal Clean Up, which is also on the third Saturday of September. It was the perfect morning for some community service. The sun was shining, it was in the low 70s, and there was a light breeze. We walked up and down the beach, grabbed any litter we saw and marked down the type of trash we found to assist with the overall data collection. We had great conversations and many laughs, especially with all of the fish skeletons we came upon. My group was at Presque Isle until around 11:00 a.m. There were many other volunteers from the community also participating in the International Coastal Clean Up Day, so many hands made light work. My group filled about two garbage bags with trash in 90 minutes, so to celebrate we went to Casa Café for a post-GIVE Day brunch.

I find GIVE Day to be something out of the ordinary. Sure, other colleges and universities may do something similar, but there is something special about Gannon’s initiative. Maybe it’s the matching shirts, or the creative name behind it, but to me, GIVE Day is so much more than a day of service. It’s about the Gannon family coming together early on a Saturday morning, giving up at least four hours of their day to provide service, all with smiles on their face— that is what makes GIVE Day so special to me.