ENMU faculty, students seeking volunteer work

Eastern New Mexico University students, faculty and staff are taking requests for free work from Portales residents as a way to give back to the community.

The focus of the Eastern in Action program is doing things for people they cannot do for themselves, such as cleaning windows, painting and pulling weeds. There is no charge.

Job requests are due by April 4, and the work day is set for April 11.

Senior Trieva Rue, Eastern in Action committee director, said this is the first year for the project aimed at taking care of the community. One of her professors showed her a Web site for such an effort at Texas A&M, called the Big Event.

“It is basically for one day students, faculty and staff are going to go out the Portales community to do odd jobs,” Rue said.

Rue said the only thing Eastern in Action participants are not responsible for doing is anything electrical, just for safety purposes.

They have received interest from faculty, students and staff in taking part in the program. The only thing missing is the community, Rue said.

Right now, the group does not have any requests from the community to do any odd jobs.

“We have job request forms set up for us at Yucca Telecom, City Hall and McDonalds,” Rue said. “It shows a listing of what jobs they may want done, and they just send it here.”

Eastern in Action leaders will take the forms, evaluate them and then pass them along to the organization on campus that will take care of the odd job.

“We have asked some of the business around town for donations,” Rue said.

C&S donated money, Trader Horn’s True Value Hardware and SOS Waste Management contributed supplies, and Burger King offered trashbags.

Information: e-mail [email protected] or call Trieva Rue or Mercedes Sandford at 562-2473.