Service Opportunities
We can make a difference.
A William & Mary education is a "scholarship of engagement." Other people just complain about the devastating effects of poverty in the developing world, homelessness or global warming. We go out and do something about it.
Seventy-five percent of W&M students participate in service projects, contributing an astonishing 323,000 service hours each year through 90 regional partnerships and dozens of national and international service trips.
The Office of Community Engagement and Scholarship is the hub of service life on campus. OCES runs the College's core youth mentoring and tutoring programs and helps professors integrate service learning into their curriculum. OCES also supports and trains individual students and campus organizations that want to start their own service projects.
Some of the most powerful and successful service projects at W&M are run by students. The annual Alan Bukzin Bone Marrow Drive is the largest college bone marrow drive in the country, collecting thousands of individual blood types to add to the national registry. And student-led organizations like Project Mexico, Schools for Schools and Destination China send W&M volunteers across the world.
Every year, 75 motivated freshman students live and serve together as part of the Sharpe Community Scholars Program. "Sharpies" might take a special seminar on African American Vernacular English while participating in youth tutoring and mentoring programs, or study historic building preservation while lobbying to save a local landmark.
This scholarship of engagement affects and informs the lives of our graduates. W&M produces more Peace Corps volunteers than almost any other mid-sized college in the nation.
Learn more about community engagement at W&M and how you can become part of the solution.
