A Week of Service

At the end of every year, Utah State University holds its traditional A-Week.

The week combined the customary activities of A-Week with service opportunities and it was dubbed “A Week of Service.”

“We tried to get them combined because originally A-Week was a week of service,” said Mandy Morgan, the service week programmer in the service center. “A-Week is a 102-year-tradition. They’ve done it almost since the University began.”

In past years, A-Week and Service Week were held in the same week, but they were separate in the fact that activity times would conflict.

“They had an A-Week schedule as well as a Service Week schedule and it didn’t mesh well,” Morgan said. “A lot of the activities were clashing times as well. You could either go do service or you could go to the activity.”

This semester, the A-Week activities were mostly service based. Some projects were—contests for picking up litter around campus, putting together humanitarian kits and a project to repair the steps by the LLC parking terrace.

On Saturday there will be a service highway clean-up project hosted by USU alumni.

“I’m excited for the opportunity for students to get involved,” said student Cher Sten. “You don’t have to take that much time out of your day to just drop by and make a toy for a kid or something else to put in time.”

“I think it’s great that they have this so that other students can get involved,” said Lindi Andreasen, a student. “I think it’s important for students to get out and meet new people as well as serving others.”

Friday night there will be a True Aggie Night and a dance party on the Quad. All will be hosted by Kisstixx, a product seen on the hit ABC series “Shark Tank.”

“It’s going to be the traditional True Aggie Night where you can come and kiss anybody and become a true Aggie,” Morgan said.

Other activities that were held during the week included chariot races, a glow-in-the-dark “undies” 5k race and a Hawaiian luau hosted by the Polynesian club.

Many students hope that A-Week will continue to be service oriented in years to come.

“A-Week is all about being proud to go to Utah State,” Andreasen said. “Doing service is something to be proud of and it says something about Utah State as a school.”