Community Service

Each year, faculty and students volunteer thousands of hours in Mobile organizations, including Mobile International Festival, Mobile Jaycees, Mobile Regional Science and Engineering Fair, Mobile Jewish Film Festival, Coastal Cleanup, Boy Scouts of America, Distinguished Young Women, Salvation Army, Mobile Azalea Trail Maids, Indian Association of Greater Mobile, United Cerebral Palsy of Mobile, Society Mobile-La Habana, L’Arche of Mobile, Junior League of Mobile, United Way of Southwest Alabama, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Southwest Alabama, Playhouse in the Park, and Mobile Baykeeper.

A new USA Volunteer Management System, South Serves, is launching in August 2018 and will allow students, faculty and staff to respond to volunteer needs throughout the community. South Serves is a portal system of the United Way of Southwest Alabama’s Volunteer Connect hub. As a result, all 85+ (and growing) nonprofits in the region who are a part of Volunteer Connect will now be able to seamlessly recruit USA students, faculty and staff to volunteer for their organizations.

USA employees and retirees have contributed almost $5 million to United Way of Southwest Alabama campaigns, including almost $1.3 million in the last five years. USA President Tony Waldrop is chair of the 2018 campaign.

Accounting students participate in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program of the Internal Revenue Service. USA partners with SaveFirst, an initiative of Impact America, to help low income, elderly and disabled people file tax returns free of charge. From 2013 through 2017, 224 students completed almost 2,000 tax returns, yielding families over $3,250,000 in refunds and saving them over $600,000 in preparation fees.

The University of South Alabama Speakers Bureau was established as a free educational service to the community. The Speakers Bureau provides businesses, civic groups, clubs and other organizations with experts who can speak on a wide variety of topics, including health and fitness, the environment, business, international affairs, and political and social issues, among many others.

More than 100 of Mobile and Baldwin counties’ homeless residents receive multiple services at the annual Project Homeless Connect event held at The Grounds in west Mobile. Nearly 500 volunteers from the University of South Alabama collaborated with Housing First Inc., and numerous non-profit and local agencies that support the homeless. USA provides most of the volunteers for this annual service event and helps to manage the logistics for the set up and supports with an 
interdisciplinary focus that’s led by the USA Health and Wellness Committee, which meets and plans this event for about six months during the year. USA faculty and students have participated in the Project Homeless Connect event for the past five years, providing interprofessional care to members of the community who are homeless. Students have participated in 
donation drives to collect clothing, backpacks, and other items to donate to this project.