In a collaborative effort with the Austin community, over 1,300 University of Texas students participated in Project 2011, a one-day service event, on Saturday, Feb. 26.

Project 2011 brought together a wide array of community groups and UT student organizations, which together provided free resources to help Rundberg area neighborhoods in North Austin address their needs. This year, project volunteers helped out with building community gardens, restoring park trails, painting schools, picking up trash, and making home repairs.

For 2011, organizations such as UT’s Communication Council aided in planting trees at the Gus Garcia Recreation Center. They learned the proper way to plant trees so they could survive, and together with other students planted around 120 trees.

“Little things like painting, planting trees, and picking up trash may not make a difference in themselves, but together we were able to change a community for the better,” said Cody Permenter, External Director for Communication Council.

Each year, the student steering committee sets up meetings with community leaders in the neighborhood where Project will take place. This year the steering committee worked closey with the North Austin Neighborhood Association, and was even able to bring in new nonprofits connections with 1House At A Time where volunteers worked on two houses doing environmentally-friendly repairs for the low-income residents who lived there.

“I hope that Project 2012 will continue the new partnerships that were forged this year,” said Jill Hokanson from the Divions of Diversity and Community Engagement. “It would be great to see these partnerships flourish, and to see the large number of volunteers available on the day of Project continue to enhance the capabilities of other local, volunteer-based agencies that are out in the community, trying to make a difference year-round.”

The project was established in 1999 by the Volunteer and Service Learning Center at The University of Texas at Austin and has received numerous service awards, including the Keep America Beautiful National Award for Community Improvement in 2000.