The Corporation for National and Community Service and the U.S. Department of Education have announced that Fresno State again is on its Higher Education Community Service President’s Honor Roll with Distinction.

“This recognition is another confirmation that our university continues to be viewed as one of the premiere colleges and universities in the nation with respect to the commitment a campus makes to community service,” said Chris Fiorentino, director of Fresno State’s Jan and Bud Richter Center for Community Engagement and Service-Learning.

Fresno State has logged more than 1 million volunteer hours by students, faculty and staff each of the past two academic years. University President John D. Welty challenged the campus to increase community service to 1 million hours by Fresno State’s Centennial celebration (2010-11), but the target was exceeded in 2009-10 and again the following year.

However, Fiorentino said the just-announced 2012 distinction stresses “the ‘outcomes’ of our service efforts, not just ‘outputs,’ such as the number of hours served. Our selection, therefore, also means that the impact of our service is seen as being extremely strong.”

Provost William Covino said, “The president’s ambitious vision and the generous dedication of our faculty, staff, and students to the welfare of the region, continue to bring us tremendous recognitions like this.”

In a congratulatory note, longtime Fresno State benefactors Jan and Bud Richter, whose gift endowed the Richter Center, wrote that the campus community’s “enthusiasm, skills, commitment and execution to invite, recruit and organize students, staff and faculty to become engaged …through community service is rewarding to everyone. The good works you do will hopefully always be fulfilling and humbling to you and to those you serve.”

In the 2010-11 academic year, nearly 14,000 individuals from the campus volunteered. Their efforts provided an economic benefit to the community of $26 million, based on estimates by the national Independent Sector forum.

Fresno State volunteers have planted community gardens, cleaned trash from the San Joaquin River, sold Kids Day newspapers to benefit a hospital, fed the hungry and helped revitalize neighborhoods around campus.

For more information, visit 2012 President’s Honor Roll with Distinction List or 2012 President’s Honor Roll List.

Contact Fiorentino at chrisf@csufresno.edu or 559.278.8848.

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