After transferring to Iowa State from a community college, Mike Stewart realized volunteer opportunities were abundant. He worked to make it easier for students to find service opportunities as co-chairman of events for CyServe Council.

Feb. 22 is CyServe Day. A full day of service planned by CyServe Council, this event allows students to sign up for times that fit their schedule. Seven different events will be held throughout the city of Ames. The events include a variety of activities to get students involved in a number of different ways, from cleaning campus buildings to playing bingo with the elderly.

“We try to make it so that it’s a wide variety of different stuff so that it’s not just all cleaning or something like that,” said Stewart.

Stewart also stressed the importance of working with organizations such as Access and Colleges against Cancer. “We’re trying to work with campus organizations so that we can find new and unique opportunities.”

The aim of CyServe Council is to get students invested in the community on a large scale said Kevin Merrill, leadership and service coordinator of the student activities center.

Merrill believes CyServe Day is a great way for students to invest on the large scale no matter how small the event.

“The project may seem small, but the impact may be much larger,” said Merrill. Stewart said that even little things could help the community a lot.

When CyServe Council was known as The 10,000 Hours Show, they used a big concert celebration as their foundation. Using last school year as a transition, they changed their name and their focus as well.

“The backbone of the organization is students volunteering and wanting to do good things in their community,” said Merrill.

Plotted between Dance Marathon and Veishea Service Day on the calendar, CyServe Day is the first February volunteer day done by CyServe Council.

“We were concerned about the weather …” said Stewart, “but the way that we tried to counter-balance that was by making all of our events inside mostly.”

Merrill added that serving others on a cold day might help with a bit of cabin fever. Despite the cold, Stewart hopes to have a bigger turnout than last semester.

“Our goal is to have a 30% increase from last CyServe Day,” Stewart said. “If we have 350 people, I would be happy about it.”

While Stewart would be happy if this goal is accomplished, he emphasized that the organization is striving for more in the future.

“We’re working to slowly make this event bigger and bigger every semester,” he said.

Signup for CyServe Day is available for all students online, and students will check-in for events at Carver Hall. Stewart knows 350 people could be difficult, but he considers it attainable.

“It’s an ambitious goal but we’re passionate about what we do and think it can happen,” Stewart said.