Students make “Reaching Every Door” a success

Saint Francis celebrated its annual Reaching Every Door (RED) Day on Oct. 2 with a slew of volunteer projects involving over 500 students in the Loretto, Cresson, Gallitzin, Ebensburg and surrounding areas. The goal of RED Day is for members of the SFU family to reach out to the local community.

With the help of a compressed class schedule, students had the opportunity to do an array of volunteer projects, from working on elderly people’s homes to trash clean-up to building planter boxes.

The sisters of Gamma Sigma Sigma coordinate RED Day activities every fall semester. This year, sophomores Courtney Caldwell and Emily Zohoranacky organized the event, kept track of volunteers, and still made it out to help do some work.

“Even though we’re in charge of it, we do want to do our part and go out to volunteer,” Zohoranacky said.

Gamma had help from their chapter advisor Lori Schrift, the Facilities Coordinator with the Center for Student Engagement.

“This is something we have been working on since we came back to school,” Caldwell said.

Senior Chemistry major Hannah Boyd visited local homes and conducted remediation for lead in the soil with her Environmental Chemistry classmates.

During last year’s RED Day, Environmental Chemistry students tested local homes for lead. Boyd’s class had the opportunity to see the results of this two-year project through to completion.

“It’s nice to help people in the community,” Boyd said. “It’s especially cool that it applies to my major.”

While Boyd’s work took place right near SFU, some volunteers went as far as Hollidaysburg to lend a hand.

“I’ve always really enjoyed the concept of taking a day away from school to do something for other people,” Zohoranacky said.