Clarksville, TN — Austin Peay State University opened the fall semester in the community rather than the classroom, sending more than 1,300 volunteers into Clarksville and the surrounding area for its fourth annual Peayple in the Community. Over the course of the day, they logged 3,105 service hours for 33 local nonprofits.
Alexandra Wills, the university’s director for Community Engagement and Sustainability (CES), coordinated the effort. Volunteers cared for adoptable animals, backed local social services, and gave blood for area hospitals — and seeing their gift of service ripple across the community was the point.
“I think one of the best ways to understand Austin Peay is to see our people in action,” APSU President Mike Licari said. Students, faculty, and staff spent the day alongside community partners, he added, and for many first-year students it was an early lesson in what being a Gov means: showing up, taking responsibility, and leaving a place better than they found it.
Literacy drew one of the larger groups. Brayden Cotterman, a freshman computer science major who came to Austin Peay already volunteering with the Clarksville-Montgomery County Public Library, sorted donations for the Woodward Library and Phi Kappa Phi as part of Candy for the Mind, which hands out free books to trick-or-treaters at APSU’s annual G.H.O.S.T. event. A self-described extrovert who likes meeting as many people as he can, Cotterman said a day set aside to serve is always worthwhile — “you get a lot more out of it than you might think.”
Those donations run from board books for the youngest readers to young adult novels — thousands of titles in all — so the extra hands matter, said Christina Chester-Fangman, the university’s interim director of library services. “At the end of the day, it’s all about helping children develop a lifelong love of reading,” she said.
Another group turned to clean water, assembling portable filters in a partnership between CES, the College of STEM, and the nonprofit Wine to Water. Kayla Miller-Zapata, the university’s sustainability coordinator and the project’s facilitator, said the work pushes students to confront a problem many would rather not name. “College really opens you up to real-world issues,” she said, and building filters for an organization that supplies them gives students a tangible way in — one that also sparked interest in hydrology.
The breadth of partners let volunteers choose sites that matched their own interests. Emmy McKiness, a sophomore veterinary technology major, headed straight for the animal shelter. “Seeing the reality of what it’s like working here has been a great experience,” she said. McKiness was one of several who spent the day with Montgomery County Animal Care and Control, handling cleaning and animal enrichment, while upper-division vet tech students assisted in the shelter clinic.
That time adds up for the animals, said Christy Bastin, communications and community outreach specialist for the agency. Feeding and cleaning eat up much of the staff’s day, she noted, so volunteers who can sit with the animals give them “that extra sense of love, belonging, and care.” The impact, she said, is immense.
Volunteers made a similar dent at the Salvation Army, cleaning and reorganizing the thrift store’s outdoor donation area. Rob Williams, director of operations for the Clarksville Corps, said the store has issued roughly $18,000 in clothing and furniture vouchers over the past six weeks to families in need, with proceeds also funding the corps’ outreach and social service work. The Austin Peay crew helped move quality donations onto the floor faster. “They show up ready to work and don’t hesitate to jump right in,” Williams said.
At the School of Nursing, associate professor Dr. Tasha Ruffin coordinated a blood drive with Blood Assurance and was struck by the turnout: more than 70 people signed up to donate, with APSU nursing students working the drive alongside Blood Assurance staff. Ruffin noted that the organization supplies an estimated 80 to 90 percent of the blood used by local hospitals, and that the country is in the middle of a supply crisis. Seeing young adults turn out for that cause, she said, is genuinely encouraging.
The university plans to keep the tradition going, and next year’s event will carry extra weight as its fifth annual day of service and part of Austin Peay’s 100th anniversary. “The day was a wonderful example of living our values as Governors,” Wills said — being active in the community and showing up for one another to start another academic year.
Editor’s note: Ethan Steinquest and Ellie Forrest of Austin Peay State University contributed to this article.
