Wayne State University Athletics

General 8/27/2024 9:47:00 AM Cooper Weidenthaler, Sports Communications Specialist

Wayne State Wins Inaugural GLIAC SAAC Community Service Championship

DETROIT -- The Wayne State University athletic department and its Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) have won the inaugural GLIAC SAAC Community Service Championship as announced by the league office.

Beginning in 2023-24, the GLIAC SAAC conducted a year-long community service/charitable fundraising challenge that culminated in this end-of-year award to Wayne State, the school with the most per capita points. Points are earned as follows: one man hour of community service organized by student-athlete(s) = one point and $10 of donations fundraised for charity by student-athlete(s) = one point. At the end of the year, each school divided the number of points earned by the number of student-athletes, and the school with the highest resulting average was crowned the winner. Campus SAAC advisors were responsible for tracking the number of hours spent in community service and the amount of money raised.

Warrior student-athletes completed a total of 5,667 hours of community service during the 2023-24 academic year (over 6,000 hours when including June and July), along with nearly $1,100 in fundraising for a total of 5,774 points for an average score of 14.08 per student-athlete.

One of the goals of SAAC is to help student-athletes engage with and give back to their local communities. Most athletic departments and student-athletes are already doing some amount of service and fundraising, so this award is a way to record and celebrate those who are doing the most to give back. Student-athletes respond well to competition as a motivator, so this contest motivates student-athletes across the conference to continue and improve their already exceptional efforts. This also provides another opportunity for the schools and the conference to highlight the civic engagement of GLIAC student-athletes, which will drive increased fan support, and will also help student-athletes enhance their experiences and resumes to help prepare them for grad school, work and life after college.

"Wayne State University athletics really emphasizes volunteering, giving back to the community and I know a lot of teams work really hard to get a ton of community service hours in," said Ella Uganski, member of WSU SAAC and a senior on the volleyball team. "We have a great opportunity being here in Detroit to have a lot of community engagement and a large population of people to work with and serve. We also have lots of different events at Wayne that we are able to volunteer at to accumulate a large number of hours."

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