For some college and university students, back-to-school activities involve community service work for social service agencies, nonprofit organizations, schools and churches.

At Geneva College in Beaver Falls, about 450 students volunteered to work with 18 organizations Saturday in the Our Town program.

At Robert Morris University in Moon, a Day of Service program involved 150 students who volunteered Aug. 23 to work with 10 nonprofit organizations.

Geneva College, a Christian school, has a long-standing tradition of freshmen and transfer students doing volunteer work in the community during their orientation week.

The Geneva students volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Beaver County; The Pisgah Program; College Hill Anglican Fellowship; Beulah Baptist Church; Chippewa United Methodist Church Youth Ministry; Fishers of Boys Inc.; First Christian Church; Adoption Connection, PA; Christ's Evangelical Lutheran Church; Concord United Methodist Church; College Hill Presbyterian Church; Tiger Pause; Steffin Hill United Presbyterian Church; The Salvation Army; Pine Valley Bible Camp; Wayman Chapel; City View Playground Committee; and Beaver County Christian School.

"Our hope is to help students connect with the larger community," said Missy Davis, director of Geneva's Center of Faith and Practice.

"We try to match the students according to their majors," Ms. Davis said. For instance, elementary education majors helped organize a picnic for Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Throughout the year, Geneva students help tutor at an after-school program run by Tiger Pause, a Beaver County organization that works with children. For Geneva's Our Town program, new college students did painting and cleaning to get Tiger Pause facilities ready for the school year.

Robert Morris University students volunteered at Focus on Renewal, where their work included painting planter boxes in the new butterfly garden next to the Father Ryan Arts Center in McKees Rocks.

Robert Morris students also performed volunteer work at West Hills Health And Rehabilitation Center, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, World Vision, The Bradley Center, Holy Family Institute, Pittsburgh Project, North Hills Community Outreach, Three Rivers Youth and Little Sisters of the Poor.

The 150 students are residence assistants in the dorms and students who participate in the university's Early Success Program, which is for new students who need additional academic preparation for college-level courses.

Community service is one of six categories that Robert Morris students can choose to fulfill their graduation requirements.

In the Student Engagement Transcript program, students pick two categories in which they can get learning experiences outside the classroom.

The others are arts, culture and creativity; transcultural global experiences; undergraduate research; leadership; and professional experience.

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