SWOPE HALL

Buenafication Day is a fond and selfless yearly tradition at Buena Vista University. Where Beavers remove a day of class and work in order to dedicate themselves fully to community service. With a whole day filled with wonderful service projects, some take place off campus while others do not. Starting at 10 am a group of students and faculty members enthusiastically entered Swope to begin their day of servitude.

 

Second Floor inhabits the realm of crime scenes, where criminology and criminal justice students at BV can practice their investigative skills. Students and Dr. Richard Riner, professor of criminology and criminal justice, chose to tidy up their workspace today. Buenafication day is about community service, which also means servicing the unique clique of communities you find here on our ample campus.

 

“We are doing a general clean up. We are sorting through our evidence we use in our mock-uh crime scenes. We are rearranging some of the crime scenes to keep them fresh, uh we are cleaning bathrooms because that’s glamorous,” Riner says but goes on to say, “uh [we are] just generally taking care of our space,”  

Riner elaborates that the best part about Buenafication Day is having the opportunity for students to take care of their home, “Go Beavers,” Riner concludes.

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Climbing up to the third floor, there is Jane’s Closet. A foster closet ran by the Student Association of Social Workers (SASW), whose objective is to help those in BV County. The passionate students involved chose to continue organizing and preparing for their ribbon cutting which takes place next week.

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“The best part about Jane’s Closet is bridging the gap between the community and BV, and letting BV service our community in a personal, hands on way,” junior social work major Katie Gruhn, who’s the co-president of SASW says.

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Servicing the community is their ultimate goal but in order to do that SASW also wants to focus on the children they are helping. To exemplify how many lives they hope to change for the better, they want to keep track of how many children come through the foster care closet.

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The Jane’s Closet sign, being held by Co-SASW leaders Katie Gruhn and Tillie Heithoff has a much greater purpose than embroidering a wall in Swope. For each child who passes through the closet, a sticker, that each child will get a chance to add themselves, will be added to the sign. The hope is that so many families utilize this resource that a new sign will be needed every year. Sticker after sticker, a child and their family will be lent a helping hand all because of compassionate students at BV.