Webster Athletics "Team" Up For Community Works Projects

Webster Athletics "Team" Up For Community Works Projects

Once again, the Webster University Athletic Department teams and staff helped out various organizations, including schools, agencies, and parks, throughout the St. Louis area on October 7.  Webster Works Worldwide (WWW), is a University-based community service project that was started in 1995 and saw its 21st straight year of the Webster community coming together to help those in need.

Many of the department's 16 teams worked as groups, tackling assignments that varied from putting together 'pre-fab' Christmas stockings to winterizing homes for the ecominically disadvantaged.  Some of the community service projects performed by the Gorlok teams included:

- Volleyball players spent time with residents at the Mary Ryder Home, making Halloween and fall decorations.

- The men's basketball team reading to young children and landscaping at a Lutheran elementary school in St. Louis city. 

- Softball players worked at a sheltered workshop for employees with disabilities, helping complete large projects, including stuffing Christmas stockings.

- The men's golf team volunteered for a non-profit group that winterizes homes for the economically disadvantaged.

- The men's baseball team did several tasks including clearing overgrowth of brush at Forest Park in St. Louis, the largest urban park in the U.S.

- Women's basketball players cleared overgrowth and helped clean Deer Creek Park in Maplewood, MO.

- Cross country and track & field teams worked at Lydia's House, that offers transitional housing for battered and abused women, and their children.  They also
  did work at Clay Elementary Youth Garden as a part of Gateway Greening.

The first 'Webster Works' day was held on November 8, 1995. Initially, groups and individual Webster students, faculty, staff and alumni at the main campus in St. Louis, MO, partnered with local non-profit agencies, parks, schools, etc.  Volunteers took a pre-set day off from work and classes to volunteer at various projects and help those in need.

In time, 'Webster Works' has grown into a worldwide University tradition, becoming 'Webster Works Worldwide'.  Held every October, volunteers and community agencies at Webster campuses around the globe partner on projects helping their local community.  Since the start of WWW, more than 30,000 volunteers have given more than 128,000 hours of service.

STORY COURTESY OF WEBSTER UNIVERSITY SPORTS INFORMATION OFFICE