Y-Serve celebrated its 25th anniversary on Wednesday, Oct. 16, with an open house for students to come and learn about the program and how they can go forth and serve.
Chris Crippen, Y-Serve Director, said that community service at BYU was originally overseen by BYUSA until the Jacobson Center for Service and Learning was created in 1999. This organization came to be known as Y-Serve.
“What we wanted to do is casually recognize that this has been here for 25 years, a silver anniversary, something to recognize,” Crippen said.
At the open house, students signed a pledge to look for opportunities to serve and enjoyed cookies and donuts. A year-by-year timeline was displayed on one wall to show Y-Serve’s growth over time. According to Crippen, it was a chance for students to get comfortable in the office and learn about the opportunities that are open to them.
“Sometimes the glass doors are such a barrier for whatever reason,” Crippen said. “Open those doors and let everybody come in and get comfortable here, consider things that they could do here.”
With about 300 student volunteers, Crippen said that Y-Serve is a great way for students to build resumes and applications, but their service blesses them in many other ways as well. As volunteers give to the community, they find more balance in their lives, focus on their schoolwork better and learn from the people they serve, he said.
One of Crippen’s favorite things about working for Y-Serve is being able to match students’ spiritual gifts with specific needs in the community.
“That’s when it just feels so magical. I enjoy seeing a student kind of blossom in that way,” he said.
Coral Taylor, a Y-Serve Community Service Coordinator, said that she has been working with Y-Serve for about three years now. She added that they call it the “Disneyland of campus” because of its happy environment. She attributes this feeling to their efforts to follow the Savior, who is the reason they serve.
Taylor explained that there is a program for every student at Y-Serve and that they can accomplish more when they sacrifice their time to help change lives.
“There is a fit for every student,” she said. “I really do think that when we give our time to the Lord, he will then multiply our time in the other areas of our lives, and then we can actually accomplish many other things.”
In 1999, Y-Serve started with about 20 programs, and over the last 25 years it has grown to about 68 programs all led by student volunteers.
Elliot Hardy, Head of Communications for Y-Serve’s Impact program, said that Impact has been a rewarding way to back to the community as a student. In the program, he has served as a mentor to at-risk children and youth in the area.
“These are really, really important years in their lives where they’re figuring out who they are, what they want to do,” Hardy said. “As a BYU student it’s really impactful if you take a little bit of your time out during the week just to go and interact with these kids and show them, hey you can do this, you can do great things.”
Of the programs Y-Serve has to offer, Crippen mentioned a few such as Adaptive Aquatics, Adopt a Grandparent, Sports Hero Day and Share Your Hair. In these outreach efforts, Crippen said that sometimes it is hard to tell who is serving who.
Crippen also explained that the Y-Serve website has filters for availability, interests and location to make finding service opportunities easier. If students still cannot find something that works with their schedule, he said that the Y-Serve office also offers a “stop and serve bar” where students can stop by and work on a service project for as long or short as they want.
Crippen invited all students and even faculty to come and see how Y-Serve can fit into their academic work and curriculum.
“What I really hope they feel is the love of the Savior through their service to other people,” he said. “It's one of the reasons this place exists and as it says on the entrance, the students enter to learn, and then they go forth to serve.”