Students partnered with NetWork Volunteers in the Louisiana bayous volunteering at a food pantry.

Community Engagement and Service

You want to do well at college, but we’re willing to bet you also want to do good.

Oxford offers many opportunities to leave your residence hall and studying behind for a while and volunteer for service at places where your interests align and where your talents are needed.

Alternative Breaks

Why head to the beach or the mountains on fall or spring break, when you can go on vacation with other Oxford students and do good at the same time? Alternative Spring Break and Alternative Fall Break blend fun, team bonding, and community engagement in a shared project that illustrates social-justice issues in real time.

Groups of 12 to 30 students travel to a selected location, where they work during the day supporting a local cause or agency. In the evenings or on off days they enjoy the local sights and attractions.

Previous trips have included post-disaster relief work following hurricanes in Mississippi, New Orleans, and New Jersey; doing urban farming and working with elementary students in Memphis; building Habitat for Humanity homes in Alabama and Georgia; working with high-need communities in South Carolina; working on the Heifer International ranch in Arkansas; assisting with refugee placement in Nashville; and reducing food insecurity in New Orleans and Orlando.

Learn more about a recent Alternative Spring Break trip

Oxford Service Leaders

Oxford Service Leaders consists of a select group of first and second-year students committed to making a difference in the lives of others and the world around them. Participants receive financial compensation and work approximately eight hours a week in a setting in the community that matches their interests and schedules.

Current student assignments include assisting in elementary school classrooms, after-school community center programs, the food pantry, senior services center, local clinic, and non-profit organizations.

Community Engaged Learning

Usually referred to as CEL, Oxford’s Community Engaged Learning courses combine classroom theory with involvement in the local community. You’ll partner with local organizations to serve, and learn by relating the content of your CEL course to experiences in the real world.

Learn more about CEL

Service Saturdays

If you’re interested in helping out in the local community but can’t commit to a set schedule, the student coordinators of Volunteer Oxford help arrange volunteer opportunities at local agencies and offices, often on the weekend. 

Volunteer Oxford

Led by four student coordinators, Volunteer Oxford is the liaison between service agencies in the local community and willing Oxford student volunteers for short-term service projects in their identified focus areas of social justice, immigration outreach, hunger/homelessness/poverty, education and youth, healthcare, environmental sustainability, and senior citizens. Volunteer Oxford Coordinators find initiatives, let students know about them, and then facilitate a volunteer matchup.Typical service opportunities include mentoring students at local K–12 schools, working at a local food bank, tutoring in an after-school program, helping with landscape and beautification work in local parks, serving with hospice center, blood drives, working at the Oxford Organic Farm, and serving at the community-wide Christmas parade.

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