copyWrite - W&M Impact

In this week's copyWrite, you'll find a sample entry for a special interest feature (SPIFF) that will be called W&M Impact. This spiffilicious example, written by Erin Zagursky in W&M University Relations, will be one of many profiles and stories showcasing the many ways W&M makes Williamsburg, Virginia, and the world a better place to live.

W&M Impact
Service: W&M's Hottest Ticket
At W&M, service trips are worth sleeping on the floor.

At William and Mary, students aren't lining up in sleeping bags to wait for concert tickets. They're camping out and sleeping on floors in hopes of getting the trip of a lifetime. Service trips are the hot ticket at William and Mary.

Helping others is infectious here. At last count, students spend more than 323,000 hours doing community service each year - across the globe and locally. In the 'burg, they tutor or read to "adopted" grandparents, and in Uganda, they build schools for orphans.

"Service is in the best tradition of William and Mary," Interim William and Mary President W. Taylor Reveley III told students during a spring dinner. "I'm very proud of you."

This year, the Office of Community Engagement offered more international service trips than ever. The 16 trips - to locations like Honduras and Tanzania - had students setting up medical clinics, providing educational programs, doing research and building relationships. Along with the international trips, students served in the good ol' U.S. of A. with seven spring break service trips. Spring break trips are so popular among students that they have camped out the night before sign-ups. This year, the students were entered in a lottery where hitting the jackpot meant spending their spring break in places like New Orleans, helping with disaster relief.

"I've been doing community service for a long time and I don't have anything planned over Spring Break, so what better to do than to help some people out while I'm on break," said student Lamar Shambley.

posted by Susan Evans