Joseph Edgecomb / The Collegian

The volunteering spirit of Fresno State students showed through at the Services to the Community Expo on Wednesday.

The fifth annual event, coordinated through the Jan and Bud Richter Center for Community Engagement and Service-Learning center, provided students, staff and faculty the opportunity to gain information on non-profit organizations, community service-learning and career opportunities.

A variety of Fresno State students were attracted to the Satellite Student Union. This was also the first year that high school students attended from University High School. Last year, two thousand students responded by volunteering at organizations that they were interested in.

Chris Fiorentino, the director of Civic Engagement and Service-Learning, is always proud to see the students willing to give back to their community.

“We do these events because we know that the students benefit the people they help and the people they help benefit them,â€Â he said.

Volunteering is a way to give back to the community and also set apart graduates in competitive fields. Volunteering, especially in an area that students are interested in having a career, offers first-hand experience that employers like to see.

“Not only does it look good on a resume, but it helps to show that you are a good person as well,â€Â said Renee Delport, the Special Events and Projects coordinator for the Richter Center for Community Engagement and Service-Learning.

Delport has a distinguished history in volunteer organizations, and is in charge of seeing that everything runs smoothly and that all volunteer organizations are non-profit.

With more than 50 spots for booths available, several were even booked before the registration of the spring semester. Even after the event began, there were still 10 to 12 booths on a wait list.

One popular booth was Care Fresno. Care Fresno is an organization that collaborates with the Fresno Police Department to help decrease crime.

In addition to providing a safe place for the city̢۪s youth to engage in positive activities and get help with homework, Care Fresno also gives children and young adults an opportunity to meet and build relationships with police officers in a non-threatening environment.

Nick Jones, director with Care Fresno, began volunteering with the organization as a college student, and now works there full-time.

“Without the relationships of the student volunteers and other positive role models, the organization is useless,â€Â Jones said.

Other safety-promoted organizations present at the expo were AmeriCorps and EOC Sanctuary Youth Services.

If tutoring is something that would be more beneficial or rewarding, several organizations are always in need of tutors in every subject such as Read Fresno, the Fresno County Public Library, Stone Soup and Star Tutoring.

Thanks to the volunteer expo and the variety of organizations asking students to lend a hand, students can look to the university for volunteer opportunities. The annual expo will be able to use the campus as a venue for future generations of volunteers. The next volunteer expo is scheduled for the fall semester.