The smell of crawfish surrounded the courtyard in One Lakeshore Place Sunday as one student organization celebrated a year of volunteering and service work.
NSCS is a national service organization with chapters at more than 200 colleges and universities across the country.
The organization is founded on three pillars — scholarship, leadership and service — said John Michael May, a biological sciences graduating senior and NSCS executive vice president.
One of the main goals of the student organization is to help the Baton Rouge community through a number of different service projects, May said.
“We go to local schools and do tutoring and talk to kids about college,” May said. “We pair up with Habitat for Humanity, Volunteers of America, Up ‘Til Dawn and other organizations to provide volunteers. We kind of piggyback on other organizations.”
One particular project May said he was proud of was Coordinated Campus Clean-up Pre- Professional Outreach — C3PO. NSCS gathered a number of student organizations, including the gymnastics team, the NAACP and a number of Greek organizations, to clean up around campus.
Many members said the best thing about participating in NSCS is that no one is pressured into work.
“I like to do stuff with them because you can make friends and help the community at the same time,” said Lauren Wagner, a fine arts senior and NSCS member. “It is all about personal effort. No one forces you to do anything.”
Christina Benjamin, a history graduating senior, is originally from England and has been involved in NSCS for a year.
“It is fun and you can participate without pressure,” Benjamin said. “There are a lot of interesting events and a group of really good people with great intentions to help the community.”
The organization has about 3,000 members at the University with more than 200 active members, May said. NSCS has been on campus for five years and this year it is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a national organization.
“Being a young organization has allowed us to try new things that other organizations might not be able to do,” said Omar Parbhoo, a computer engineering senior and NSCS member.
Along with coordinating their own events, like C3PO and “Listen for the Whistle” — a campaign where members handed out whistles to students during the spring 2003 semester, NSCS has done mentoring and tutoring at McKinley Middle School and McKinley High.
“I joined late last semester and I really haven’t done much yet, but I look forward to being active in future activities,” said Andrew Wright, an undecided freshman and member of the football team.
Wright also said he liked NSCS because there is no pressure to be involved.
“I get more out of volunteer work than when I am required to do something,” Wright said. “Like when we went to a hospital during the Sugar Bowl.”
May said members are looking forward to the upcoming semester and participating in more projects and volunteer work.
“We come up with things to help out students that are applicable to now,” May said.
Tiffany Scavo, a communication disorders junior, is NSCS president-elect.
“I did service work all throughout high school and loved it,” Scavo said. “There are other things on campus I could do, but I picked this one and just kind of stuck with it.”